Eskom has spent more than R620 million on diesel this month as the country is saddled with another bout of rolling blackouts.

According to Eskom’s CEO Andre de Ruyter this is around 48 million litres of fuel.

In the last financial year, the embattled state entity spent nearly R7 billion on diesel and almost R3 billion on Independent Power Producers (IPP) plants. In recent months the price of fuel has escalated amid the Russia Ukraine conflict which will be an added financial burden to Eskom which is drowning in debt.

It’s anticipated that Eskom will downgrade load shedding to Stage 2 after the evening peak. Also, the prognosis of power outages for next week remains low at this stage.