Why theft of copper cables is so wrong.
Straton Electrical recently purchased 64 meters of 500 mm Square Copper Cable for a large building in Gqeberha.
The price per meter is in the R1 600.00 range and each meter conservatively contains around 4 kilograms of copper.
Now ‘shiny bright’ scrap copper can get around R80.00 per kilogram on the scrap metal market for properly registered dealers/businesses.
Shady dealers will pay less than that (R30.00 and down) to the thieves but still a premium on dirty copper and other metals.
A simple calculation will show that the theft of such a length of copper can result in huge financial pain for the business.
This cable is going into one quadrant and we will eventually replace all such cables in the other 3 quadrants. The cable alone is going to cost R409 600.00 and if a miscreant steals it they will get a measly R7 680.00 for scrap.
