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On-The-Air (28/03/2014)

On-The-Air (28/03/2014)

28th March 2014

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Dhashen Moodley speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Moodley: I must mention I met one of your colleagues yesterday when we went to Carnarvon, he was out there capturing some of the video, I’m guessing it is going to be on your websites.

Creamer: Yes it is, and that is the first dish of 64 dishes to come. Sounds like a restaurant.

Moodly: One of the things that is so surprising is that you go into this area and the scientist can tell you that when they arrived there was nothing, it was desolate, just the Karoo, with just some tumbleweed rolling by and mountains in the background. Before they arrived there was nothing, everything has been bought in using local man power, local labour, 75% is the project aim of all the contracts being South African. Great boom for South Africa here.

Creamer: Fantastic, but are we going to solve the mysteries of the universe with it?

Moodley: Richards Bay Coal Terminal is ready to boost the coal export potential of black junior miners.

Creamer: Richards Bay Coal Terminal have made it unequivocally clear that they would like to boost the coal export potential of black junior miners. This is a key thing for them to say because there has been quite a robust debate around this between themselves and Transnet. Transnet is very keen to push the black junior. In order for the black junior to really succeed he has got to have a business plan that has a domestic and international balance. Without that you cannot do it. Eskom is pushing for its remaining billion tons of coal coming through to be from black controlled companies, which is 50% plus one share. They are saying to the majors we will get coal from you but all the new growth we want to come from the juniors. For them to succeed, they have got to have an export outlet and Transnet has been thinking of building one for itself. Grindrod has come in with an offer. The most efficient of all these, the proven one, the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, which is private-sector owned are saying that they will give 90-million tons and want to be open-minded about it and not have any tension developed as has been happening. This is so crucial for South Africa, because if you look at what coal does for this country, it is the biggest foreign exchange earner for South in terms of commodities. We think of gold, platinum. Coal outdoes that and it has got a fantastic domestic balance and international balance. In order for this to continue now, they need to give an outlet to juniors and Richards Bay Coal Terminal is saying give it to us, it will make us more efficient because it will give us the additional volume.

Moodley: I am sure a valiant cry from some of those will be we need energy in order to produce this coal.

The Department of Energy is set to launch proposals for power supply from independent non-Eskom sources.

Creamer: It is coming soon, because they are saying by Monday they will have the documentation done. They have committed themselves to Monday being the deadline for documentation and April being their submission month in which people can submit their bids. This comes against the background of 14 hours of blackout that we have had this month. Load-shedding this month and that has pushed the emergency button for these IPPs, that the new buzzword, independent power producers. We have been waiting for them for so long. They are going to start off quickly although this covers natural gas, coal and co-generation. They are going to concentrate on coal and cogen quickly because that is where they can go ahead because there are still gas guidelines that have got to come through in June. Cogeneration, gas plus coal in terms of these IPPs, is three quarters of Medupi power station. It is a lot of potential megawattage to come through. They are saying on the cogen and coal front they will work it immediately. They will have a dedicated website where people can go in and make their submissions and bids and they will see the time frame they have got to have them in and when the announcements will be made. This gives a lot of confidence to the investors. The Department of Energy has received a lot of praise, because it has done very well with the renewable energy side and they are going to base this new model on renewable energy front and we see that they may extend the bids for the number three window, because the bids have been so good. April 18 is when the fourth window opens. Still rolling out this month is a decision on a 200 MW concentrated solar power plant. They are keen on this concentrated solar plant. They have got to pay more on their tariffs, but this is able to store electricity and that is the big word at the moment. Can you store energy? This is going to be so important from the whole efficient use of energy point of view. It is so difficult to store electricity. You haven’t got a battery big enough, but with these concentrated solar power, there is a storage mechanism. It becomes like a pumped-storage plant like the Drakensberg Scheme plant where you can then push it out when it is needed and then hold it back when it is not.

Moodley: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he’ll be back with us at the same time next week.

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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