JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Junior coal mining entrants were becoming shareholders of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), dispelling the notion that use and ownership of the terminal was the preserve of large majors.

RBCT CEO Nosipho Siwasa-Damasane, who this week addressed the twelfth Coaltrans Southern Africa coal conference at Sun City, told Mining Weekly Online that pressure had been mounting on RBCT for some time to consider a greater spread of owners.

The terminal’s entire fifth phase had been given over to junior operators, which pay for equity through their participation.

“There’s been a lot of effort to have greater junior participation,” Siwasa-Damasane said.

Of the terminal’s 19 shareholders, seven were in the junior-miner and black-empowered new-entrant categories, with more new-entrant take-up anticipated.

Eskom, which has a three-million-ton RBCT export allocation, is currently on a drive to buy coal from new black-controlled coal mines to fill its supply shortfall from 2018.

The former Transnet Port Terminals COO, who took over RBCT’s reins last July, said RBCT was in the process of reviewing its operational efficiencies in order to satisfy new market demands.

A 24-hour coal-exporting operation with a design capacity of 91-million tons a year, RBCT exported 68.3-million tons in the 12 months to December 31.

It manages assets worth R7-billion and employs 527 people.

The building of a sixth RBCT phase is under discussion with State rail company Transnet, which intends increasing coal-line capacity to 95-million tons by 2018.

Investment in the Swazi rail link will also take noncoal freight off the coal line and thus open up more capacity for coal.

Demand for seaborne steam coal grew by a record 75-million tons in 2012, reaching 835-million tons, but demand growth was over-supplied, which caused prices to fall and Transnet to experience lower demand for rail as a result.