Today’s business update – and we compare fuel reward programmes

1. The health department has temporarily stopped the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine rollout in SA, after a new study found the vaccine provided minimal protection against the 501Y.V2 variant first identified locally in November, News24 reports.  The Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines will be fast-tracked and rolled out to healthcare workers.

2. Eskom suspended Stage 2 load shedding on Sunday morning. It suffered "coal constraints" due to heavy rains in Mpumalanga and Limpopo, affecting the transfer of coal to power stations earlier in the week. However, by Sunday Eskom said generation capacity had sufficiently recovered.

3. Telkom released its trading update for the nine months to end-December this morning, reporting that its revenue was basically flat - despite a 41% increase in mobile service income. Its mobile subscribers climbed by 27% to more than 10 million, but its fixed broadband subscribers declined by 16% to 617,000

4. This morning, Brent crude oil traded above $60 per barrel for the first time in more than a year. Oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, have pledged to trim their output, while demand is on the increase as the global economy picks up, Bloomberg reports.