The final issues are being sorted out between Alcan, the Canadian aluminium company, and South Africa over the building of a smelter at Coega in the Eastern Cape, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Tuesday.
Briefing the parliamentary media, the minister said his government had been “in touch” with Alcan “quite a lot in the last two weeks” and reported that the “final issues” were being sorted out between the South African power parastatal Eskom and Alcan about the supply of electricity to the proposed project.
He said his department was to publish regulations relating to the “developmental electricity pricing” and he believed that this would be completed within the next two weeks.
Mpahlwa was optimistic that Alcan would sign an agreement for the smelter before the end of the year.
He reported that he had a meeting with the Alcan team that was in the country and had also spoken on the phone to Alcan’s chief executive — and Anglo American chief executive designate Cynthia Carroll — and from these interactions, it “did look like” Eskom and Alcan had resolved all the issues involved with the project’s energy contract. ‒ I-Net Bridge