Johannesburg - British American Tobacco suffered production losses of between 100 to 200 million cigarettes as a result of load-shedding in Heidelberg in the course of the last week, the company’s operations manager said on Sunday.
“It is about 5 - 10 percent capacity loss because we have to switch the machines on and off. The power dips and spikes mess up our equipment.” Arturo Rodriguez said.
BAT’s 2014 production was just over 25 billion cigarettes, which averaged out to over 2 billion cigarettes per month.
“There have been open communication with Eskom and we wanted clarity for a way forward exploring a solar plant but that can’t be done over night and the investment is steep.”Rodriguez added
BAT South Africa is the leading tobacco manufacturer in South Africa with a market share of more than 85 percent of the legal cigarette industry.
ANA