South Africa electricity utility, Eskom, on Monday night temporarily stopped power supply to one of mining group’s BHP Billiton’s aluminium smelters.

This followed an increase in demand for electricity in South Africa, which outstripped supply due to the cold weather among other things.

This latest Eskom’s move vindicates Standard Bank which allegedly called for BHP Billiton to close down some of its smelters in 2008.This was at the height of nationwide power outages in South Africa.

At the time, BHP Billiton responded by stopping to do business with South Africa’s Standard Bank worth R2.4 billion ($239 million).

At the time it was also alleged that a bank executive, later identified as former Standard Bank chairman Derek Cooper, had called for the mining group’s smelters to be closed down to save electricity.

South has experienced power shortages in recent years because the South African government under the leadership of former President Thabo Mbeki had failed to invest money in new power station.

According to a Reuters report on Tuesday, an agreement between state-run Eskom and BHP allow the utility to interrupt power to the latter’s energy-intensive smelters if the national grid approaches a tipping point.

“We did interrupt supply to one of the BHP Billiton units for a time, but still have emergency reserves available,” Reuters quoted spokeswoman Hilary Joffe as having said, adding Eskom ran gas turbines when supply was drying up.