Mining sector makes gains in securing power

South Africa’s mining sector has made gains in securing electricity, the director general of South Africa’s Minerals and Energy Department said on Thursday.

He was addressing the first day of the Paydirt 2008 Africa Down Under resources conference in Perth, Australia. Global miners had condemned the high level of power cuts in the opening quarter of this year.

However, Sandile Nogxina said that since Eskom began rolling power cuts “the national electricity response plan has led to the commissioning of a further 600MW of generation capacity by Eskom, and an additional 200MW of capacity made available at Cahora Basa”.

“We have also put in place demand-side management power conservation and energy efficiency strategies to deliver 10% savings in total energy consumption.”

He said this was an interim measure until new capacity came on stream, including the recommissioning of mothballed Eskom power stations.

Nogxina added that energy-intensive industries like ferro-alloys were being urged to establish cogeneration power plants, based around their vast heat and gas producing processes.

“The total impact of the combination of these factors is, we expect, a return this year and next to higher investment levels in South Africa’s mining sector,” he said.—Sapa