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Mail & Guardian

Thungela

latest news & developments
While coal producers stand to benefit from stronger prices and export demand, researchers warn that increased coal production and exports carry significant environmental and social costs, from greenhouse gas emissions to the impacts borne by communities living near mines and coal-fired power stations. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
VUSI MPOFU

Draft Integrated Resource Plan accepts coal reality, says Thungela chief executive

The leading coal exporter is not giving up, even as local logistics constraints and falling prices bear down on sales

  • Sarah Smit
3 min read
Transnet is falling well below its target of shifting 200 million to 220 million tonnes of freight a year, at which point — it is estimated — it will begin to make a meaningful contribution to the economy. Its current target is 170 million tonnes a year. Photo: (Karel Prinsloo/Bloomberg)
COAL

Coal miners knuckle down to find solutions to Transnet failings

According to the Minerals Council, logistical constraints induced by the railway’s setbacks have cost mining industry R51 billion in exports

  • Sarah Smit
7 min read
Saldanha Bay, West Coast, South Africa, Railway trucks carrying iron ore from Sishen to Saldanha Bay terminal on the West Coast of South Africa. (Photo by: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
ALAN MUKOKI

Strike sets Transnet back — again

The industrial action is the latest in a series of economy-hitting upsets for the state logistics company

  • Sarah Smit
7 min read
Analysts say the fossil fuel’s boom will probably be short-lived as the turn to renewable energy picks up. (Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
CHINA

Europe’s winter extends coal’s hot streak

But analysts say the fossil fuel’s boom will probably be short-lived as the turn to renewable energy picks up

  • Sarah Smit
7 min read