NUM clashes with Eskom over Koeberg

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The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has accused Eskom of delaying the Koeberg nuclear power station steam generator project to facilitate payment agreements between Eskom’s executives and main contractor Framatome. Meanwhile, Eskom acting chief nuclear officer Keith Featherstone said if the steam generator replacement programme had not been deferred, then load-shedding would have lasted much longer.

In an April visit to Koeberg by the NUM and portfolio committees in April to monitor the replacement of the steam generators, the NUM relayed its concerns to the committee about the contract between French contractor Framatome and Eskom being fraudulent.

During a portfolio committee meeting on Tuesday, NUM Western Cape representative Phumzile Mvovo alleged that Eskom delayed the project to facilitate payments agreements between Eskom’s executives and Framatome.

“It is clear that the decision to postpone the project was not made by the project manager. This decision probably led to Eskom losing billions of rand, which could have been avoided. It, therefore, begs the question whether this postponement has not been scripted to facilitate payments agreements between executives.

Eskom, on the other hand, argued that the project had to be delayed to prevent the increasing impact of loadshedding.

A messy deal

The committee heard that Framatome performed a final review of the steam generator replacement programme to meet quality levels and outage.

The review, however, indicated that unit 2 would not return to the grid in June as scheduled, as facilities required to support the replacement programme were not ready.

Framatone charged the utility R1-billion for the maintenance, which Eskom, through its inhouse project management team, refused to pay, alleging that Framatome had not done the maintenance as agreed.

Framatome was not available for comment.

As a result, Eskom suspended three senior employees arguing that it had identified poor project management, inadequate contract management and a lack of financial discipline as being contributory factors towards the project not commencing as scheduled.

“While the outcome of the investigation will assist management to determine remedial and consequence management actions to be taken, thus far, three senior employees have been placed on precautionary suspension with full pay,” Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter said.

Eskom suspended NUM member Justice Gumede and two solidarity members for refusing to pay Framatome R1-billion.

Mvovo added that the NUM was aware of at least eight investigations that had been conducted on the project. He however argued that none of them had “implicated their member, yet he remained suspended”.

“The NUM believes that this suspension is unfair, very discriminatory, and has been advised to assist our member to take the matter to the CCMA,” Mvovo said.

Mvovo went on to allege that Eskom was anti-nuclear, which was the reason that led to the delay.

However, De Ruyter refuted the allegations, “Eskom is definitely pro-nuclear, otherwise we wouldn’t be pursuing this life extension project. We would welcome the opportunity to extend our interest and allow every member of the committee an opportunity to ask any question they may have,” he said..

What is this project?

The steam generator replacement project is a key part of Eskom’s plans to extend the life of Koeberg by 20 years beyond its expiry date at the end of July in 2024.

Eskom last year applied for the licence extension with the National Nuclear Regulator. In its application it motivated that it would submit required reports for the licensing process in the middle of the year.

Unit 2 of the power station was shut down on 18 January 2022 for refuelling and maintenance. The steam generator replacement was planned to take place during the outage where units are shut off for refuelling and maintenance. This is done twice a year and load-shedding is planned for this period to maintain the generators. But the replacement was deferred.

Earlier this year, Eskom’s chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said that given the “potential severe impact” of the unit not returning online on time, Eskom decided to defer the steam generator replacement to Koeberg’s next planned maintenance outage, which will start in August 2023.

“This is to avoid the risk of impacting electricity supply during the high peak demand winter period,” he said.

The delay in getting Koeberg unit 2 up and running on schedule resulted in an additional 900 megawatt shortfall during South Africa’s severe power blackouts.

The Koeberg nuclear station’s unit 2 returned to service on Sunday, after a trip put it out of action at the start of September — less than a month after it was plagued by mechanical issues and a delayed return to service.