JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - South Africa's Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) announced on Wednesday that it had achieved level-three for its broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) policies.

During the past three years, RBCT had been transformed from being a level five BBBEE company to become a 21,76% black-owned company in South Africa.

In 2004, RBCT was only 0,5% BEE-owned.

RBCT CEO Raymond Chirwa said that the company had spent about R354-million, which is just above 60% of its operational budget, on black owned enterprises in 2009.

RBCT is South Africa's third largest foreign exchange earner and one of the largest coal-exporting terminals in the world. The terminal has a capacity of 76-million tons, soon to become 91-million tons, even though only 61,14-million tons were exported last year, to European, Indian and Asian markets.

An independent verification agency, Emex Trust, scored RBCT particularly well in the ownership, management and control, skills development, preferential procurement, enterprise development and socio-economic development categories, RBCT reported.

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