SA coal exporters count cost of outage

The Richards Bay coal terminal. File picture: Leon Nicholas

The Richards Bay coal terminal. File picture: Leon Nicholas

Published Feb 7, 2014

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Johannesburg - Local coal producers still do not know what financial losses they have incurred more than a week after coal exports came to a halt at Richards Bay coal terminal.

Africa’s biggest coal export terminal has been hit by a power failure from cables feeding into the terminal’s sub-station. uMhlathuze municipality and Eskom are working to restore power at the terminal.

With no contingency plans in place, the terminal hopes to be fully operational by tomorrow evening. The number of vessels waiting to be loaded had reached about 28 yesterday.

Once power is restored, the terminal will have to deal with a backlog of ships as it takes between 24 hours and 36 hours to load coal into one vessel.

South Africa’s largest coal exporter, Glencore Xstrata, which holds 31.7 percent shares at terminal operator RBCT, said the power outage had had an impact on its export schedule. “We are monitoring the situation closely and hope for a swift resumption in operations,” it said.

Second-largest coal exporter Exxaro said it was dependent on the restoration of the terminal operations and Transnet Freight Rail service to resume its exports. Exxaro produces about 47 million tons of coal every year.

Anglo American said it had not been able to rail its coal to the port, nor ship any coal from the terminal, for the past week.

Anglo had no alternate outlet to export coal as it did not have capacity allocation at any port in Mozambique.

Sasol said it was not affected as it exported a very small amount of coal. “The impact would be immaterial,” it said.

A chemical storage company close to the terminal, Island View Storage, said it had been unable to export or import its products. Managing director David Leisegang said although he could not quantify the disruption in monetary value, his company had not exported nor imported any chemicals since the stoppage.

Island View Storage uses electricity to keep tanks chilled for ammonia and gas storage. Leisegang said: “If they are not chilled we will need to flare the products off to keep pressures and temperatures intact.

“When we do that we burn products that belong to our customers.” - Business Report

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