From Bloomberg

Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. began rolling scheduled blackouts in South Africa for the first time in six years after rain disrupted the state-run utility’s supply of coal, burned to generate more than 80 percent of power.

The company earlier today asked industrial users, including Sasol Ltd. (SOL) and ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd., to scale back demand by 10 percent until at least 9 p.m. The cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg issued timetables for power cuts, and the rapid-rail Gautrain network temporarily stopped services between the Marlboro and Rosebank stations in Johannesburg.

“Seven days of continuous rain have affected our power stations in Mpumalanga and is still affecting coal mines,” Andrew Etzinger, a spokesman for Johannesburg-based Eskom, said by phone. “This is the worst it has been since January 2008.”

The company, which supplies 95 percent of South Africa’s electricity, is spending 500 billion rand ($46.7 billion) to replace aging equipment and add plants to avoid a repeat of blackouts that affected homes, mines and factories for five days in January 2008.

Written by Jaco Visser and Paul Burkhardt/Read more at Bloomberg