The South African coal arm of mining giant BHP Billiton said last week that it had done more for black empowered coal exporters than any other single shareholder of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT).

BHP Billiton Energy Coal South Africa asset president Manie Dreyer was responding to comments made by Transnet CEO Brian Molefe that the mining giant had refused to give up a further one-million tons of yearly port capacity at RBCT for the benefit of “the small guys”.

Molefe described a meeting with BHP Billiton as “disastrous” and one “where we nearly came to blows”.

“That has prompted us to think of using part of the Richards Bay port for the small guys.

“We fight for the small guys. That is the real issue at the bottom of this entire coal hullabaloo,” Molefe told Mining Weekly.

Dreyer responded in a media release, saying that BHP Billiton was both “surprised and disappointed” by the way the Transnet CEO had chosen to portray the company.

Dreyer said that Transnet’s recent request for BHP Billiton to relinquish a further one-million tons of port capacity at RBCT had arisen at a time when BHP Billiton was short of port capacity and unable even to develop some of its own remaining prospecting rights because of the unavailability of sufficient port capacity.

He pointed out that Transnet’s rail capacity did not match RBCT’s current port capacity of 91-million tons a year, which meant that existing RBCT shareholders, including numerous black economic-empowerment (BEE) shareholders, were unable to access to their own nameplate capacity at the port.

The “unfounded” assertions created the impression that BHP Billiton was not committed to the spirit and intent of BEE and that the company had done nothing to demonstrate its support for BEE in South Africa, which was far from the truth.

In reality, BHP Billiton’s numerous empowerment transactions since 2001 had resulted in eight-million tons a year of the company’s original port capacity of 26-million tons a year being transferred to black-owned mining companies.

In partnership with the Depart-ment of Mineral Resources and the other RBCT shareholders, BHP Billiton had also contributed an additional one-million tons a year in 2004 to the Quattro initiative, which resulted in four-million tons a year of port capac- ity being created for BEE junior miners.

The company had also sold a further one-million tons a year to Exxaro, the BEE miner created through an empowerment transaction spearheaded by Anglo American and BHP Billiton more than ten years ago.

In all, over the last 12 years, BHP Billiton had been responsible for a total of ten-million tons a year of BEE port capacity at the RBCT, which was more than the capacity made available by any other single RBCT shareholder.

Moreover, in 2005, BHP Billiton elected to pass up its rightful share of RBCT’s 15-million-ton-a-year Phase V expansion to allow BEE miners to take up the additional capacity.

All these collectively demonstrated BHP Billiton’s commitment to transformation of South Africa’s mining industry.

BHP Billiton was currently only a 21% shareholder at the RBCT, compared with almost 40% ten years ago, because of all the gestures it had made to open up port allocation to BEE companies.

• See also page 12