Energy Fiji Ltd spent $193 million, the highest ever in the company’s history, on fuel to power its diesel-powered generators in 2023, said CEO Hasmukh Patel in their 2023 annual report that was tabled in Parliament last week.
He said since there was insufficient diesel power generation capacity to meet the rising electricity demand, some 65 megawatts of containerised diesel generating sets were hired and deployed around Viti Levu from June 2023 until the year-end at a cost of around $21million.
“This also contributed to an all-time high fuel cost of $193m for 2023, the highest ever in EFL’s history,” he said.
“This adversely impacted the EFL’s financials for 2023. EFL recorded monthly financial losses from May 2023 to December 2023.
“As a result of the high fuel cost being incurred, the management had to review its overall operations by deferring most of its Capital Expenditure program planned for 2023 and implemented cost-cutting measures across the business wherever possible to ensure that the company remained afloat.
“EFL adopted the strategy to conserve water at the Monasavu Dam from mid-April 2023 by reducing generation output from the Wailoa Power Station to around 25 per cent of the total Viti Levu demand so that the water at the catchment could last till the end of the year in the event we continued to receive below average rainfall until the end of the year.
“As a result, EFL continued to burn expensive thermal fuel and recorded monthly financial losses from May to December 2023.
“EFL carefully adopted the above strategy considering the worst-case scenario if the Monasavu Hydro Scheme had to be shut down as a result of the dam level reaching below the safe operating level.
‘However, EFL ensured that its critical function of delivering safe and reliable electricity without any major hurdles to its customers.
“The key drivers driving the growth in electricity demand were high humidity experienced in the first five months of the year, record visitor arrivals, activity growth in other key sectors and the construction of the rural electrification schemes funded by the Government.
“Furthermore, the increase in electricity demand also increased the fuel cost as a result of more fuel usage to meet the increased electricity demand using expensive diesel.”
