The Minerals Council SA has condemned a social media campaign calling for an end to coal exports from the Richards Bay Coal Terminal to alleviate Eskom’s load-shedding, describing the agitprop offensive as “devoid of facts and deeply worrying”.
“This campaign is not based on any facts and instead relies on outright fallacious allegations that Eskom’s inability to keep SA adequately supplied with electricity is allegedly because of the country exporting coal,” the Minerals Council said in a statement on Friday. “This is the wrong diagnosis of the challenges Eskom confronts.”
SA’s economy has started 2023 with power cuts of up to 12 hours a day after years of underinvestment, corruption and mismanagement at Eskom render the state utility incapable of delivering a stable power supply. Nearly half of Eskom’s fleet of ageing coal-fired power station are out of operation due to breakdowns and planned maintenance, forcing it to institute indefinite Stage 6 load-shedding, which sees 6,000MW cut from the national grid at any one time.
“Eskom is not short of coal and continues to receive all the coal it expects from its contracted suppliers,” the Minerals Council said.
The council also said Eskom’s national spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha, had confirmed that the power utility has 31.8 days’ worth of stockpiled coal at its power plants compared with the minimum requirement of 20 days.
“Eskom’s problems are fundamentally due to its ageing coal-fired power station fleet, the frequent breakdowns and poor reliability of certain power stations,” the Minerals Council said. “The problems have nothing to do with any shortages of coal.”
The Minerals Council said any disruption to coal exports through the Richards Bay Coal Terminal would result in a disruption to mining operations, which if protracted could imperil jobs in a sector that is also trying to cope with a lack of electricity. It could also deter international investors and damage SA’s reputation as a reliable source of commodities as well as undermining tax collection and royalties for the national fiscus.
Eskom’s 2020/21 Integrated Report showed that it burned 105m tonnes of coal. That is expected to drop to less than 50m tonnes annually by 2030 as the utility pursues the planned decommissioning of 24,100MW of coal-generated electricity power beyond the end of this decade.
“The export market is critical to maintain jobs in coal mining, which employs 91,000 people, and thousands more people employed in rail, road and port logistics jobs,” the Minerals Council said, adding that SA exported coal worth R215.5bn in 2022.
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