Vehicle manufacturer, Ford has slowly resumed production at its South African assembly plant in Silverton following the collapse of seven Eskom pylons on Sunday evening, which left large parts of Pretoria East without power.
The company is still counting the cost of the interruption to its operations, saying on Thursday afternoon that the estimated total loss of production to date over the past two days had been 1 440 vehicles, while operations had “slowly resumed”.
Ford Motor Company South Africa said in a statement that the collapse of the power lines left its Silverton plant – where it produces the Ford Ranger for local and global markets – as well as its local suppliers without power.
The company was forced to suspend production at its Silverton plant on Monday, but said that power had since been restored in stages starting on Tuesday evening. As a result it has been able to resume production slowly.
But the company also sounded a note of caution, saying that due to the “scale of the Eskom infrastructure concern” there remained “some risk of interrupted supply”.
It said it continued to liaise with Eskom and local government as “they work to balance the system and fully restore the network”.
The company, which runs three shifts at the plant every day, recently invested almost R16 billion there to ramp up production to 200 000 units a year. It also produces the VW Amarok at Silverton.