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DRC Prime Minister Sylvestre Ilunga
Ilunkamba addresses the opening session South African Minister for Mineral Resources & Energy Gwede Mantashe with Orion
of Mining Indaba in Cape Town Minerals managing director Errol Smart

reasons for the retraction.
Mantashe said the issue had forced
the Government into taking “some se-
rious decisions”, chief of which was to
clear the regulatory hurdles for inde-
pendent power producers and for miners
wishing to generate their own power.
Mantashe said officials were
revising the Electricity Regulation
Act (ERA) to allow companies to
generate power for their own use
without a license. But Mantashe
said miners would still have to
register their generating facilities, The ANC Government burnished its possible and some headway has al-
which companies say is time-con- climate action credentials by enact- ready been made as a result of newer
suming. ing a carbon tax in May last year and power plants coming on stream, and the
Some analysts expect amend- several mining companies are target- impending closure of older plants asso-
ments to the ERA will have to ing self-generation via renewables pro- ciated with historically large emissions.
go through public participation, jects. Mantashe, however, is pragmatic Further, these new power stations rep-
which could delay matters further. about which energy sources the country resent an enormous investment. It would
“If there is political will, it could should be turning to. be economically crippling to simply shut
be done in months. But if you look “We are focused on low-carbon en- them down.
at the past, they’ve been talk- ergy – carbon capture, geothermal and “For the foreseeable future in South
ing about amending the flawed coal-bed methane – but must find ways Africa, coal remains a necessity as the
schedule 2 (of the ERA) since of using coal in a way that also reduces baseload source of power even with the
2017,” EE Business Intelligence emissions.” expansion of renewables. So much of
energy analyst Chris Yelland said. Price, he said, was the primary driver what South Africa produces is connect-
Mantashe said South Africa’s of power options. ed to coal. It is the largest component of
power market would be fur- “We must negotiate to pull down the mining by sales value and is a critically
ther opened to competition but price, renewables are not cheap,” he told important source of the primary energy
claimed Eskom itself wasn’t the a press briefing after his address. “Coal that drives the economy.”
problem. is still cheaper; it has been with us for With members agitating for simplified
“There is going to be a separate many years and coal is not going to go rules around self-generation, the Miner-
entity to Eskom, but the issue is away.” als Council reinforced its calls for Man-
not Eskom or no Eskom, the is- The Minerals Council is also support- tashe to deregulate the sector.
sue is security of energy supply,” ive of a transition to low-carbon power “The Government [must] fast-track leg-
he said. “We need to go back to generation but warned the move away islation that makes it possible for mining
the days of surplus energy; price from coal would have to be gradual. companies to generate their own power,
is the major problem.” “When we refer to a just transition,” including the more than 600MW of solar
In his State of the Nation address on Baxter said. “We mean that there are power projects already in the pipeline,”
February 13, President Cyril Ramapho- technical, social and economic grounds the Council said.
sa announced the implementation of the for a gradual, rather than an immediate Mantashe said moving away from li-
Integrated Resource Plan 2019 which move away from coal. censing “should accelerate the process-
will allow municipalities to purchase “The Minerals Council acknowledges ing of getting self-generation for miners”.
power outside of the national grid. that cleaner coal power generation is “Then, if new generation is cheap
enough, the mining industry will be able
to target other opportunities, beneficia-
tion for instance,” he said. “Beneficiation
will be as slow or easy as the price of
electricity allows.”
However, he remained sceptical about
miners’ desire to enter the power gen-
eration space.
“Sibanye [Stillwater Inc] was given
50MW in 2017 but never built that ca-
pacity,” he said. “Talk is cheap, action is
expensive.”
With Eskom failing, South African Air-
ways faltering and the country’s mining
sector shrinking, it appears the conse-
quences of taking no action could be
even costlier.
– Dominic Piper
Paydirt advertising manager Richa Fuller at the company’s
exhibition booth at Mining Indaba
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT MaRCH 2020 Page 31