July 25, 2008

South African coal output improving after heavy rains

Mining Weekly reported that some of South African Eskom's biggest coal suppliers said that their production is improving after heavy rains this week.

Mr Bronwyn Wilkinson a spokesperson of BHP Billiton said that "It is still difficult with the wet conditions, but the situation is improving.” Meanwhile, Eskom's biggest coal provider, Exxaro Resources, said that the rain had only affected its deliveries minimally.

Mr Trevor Arran a spokesperson said that "Heavy rainfall in Mpumalanga has fortunately not affected the two big Eskom base load suppliers, Matla and Arnot, which are both underground mines.” He added that there was "not that much rain" at its Grootegeluk opencast mine near Lephalale, which supplies the Matimba power station.

Mr Arran stated that "We have, as per planned, sizeable stockpiles at most of our operations in case of further, persistent rain.”

Mr Pranill Ramchander AngloCoal spokesperson said that "only some opencast mines were affected and they were certainly not all shut down.” He said that "With rainfall this is not unusual for it to affect opencast operations.” He added that there was unnecessary hype created.

Eskom, which uses coal to produce some 93% of its power said that it struggles to burn wet fuel and that it is difficult to handle wet coal. It has been load shedding since Monday.