4/3/2023 0 Comments Baxter booxter![]() Worsening rail and logistical constraints have had a material impact on mining’s export capacity. Stage 6 loadshedding results in demand curtailment at the Eskom level and the industry remains very dependent on Eskom. “Whilst we’ve done very well on the financial side in terms of our export earnings base and our sales value base, we are concerned about various constraints that are affecting us,” said Baxter. Just remember, if you are sitting at 475 000 jobs, we have a multiplier of ten to one, which means that there are ten people dependent on the mining sector, and we have what it is called a three-to-one multiplier, so we estimate that about 1.3-million people are employed in the economy as a result of the mining sector. Production has had to respond to the various constraints that we’re facing but the revenue effect from higher prices has been quite nice. Value of total production was a high R1.18-trillion in 2022 but red lights are flashing in that South African mining industry could have done a lot better.Įxceeding the trillion rand mark for the second year was driven mostly by strong commodity prices but the production side dropped to a level that did not even return output to the pre-Covid level, which is concerning. The South African mining industry’s contribution to South Africa’s gross domestic product in 2022 was R494-billion, Minerals Council state in its 'Facts & Figures Pocketbook 2022' just released. “In the short term, we’re still at stage 3 loadshedding and a bit later we’ll go up to stage 4 loadshedding, which does affect us,” said Baxter. “We seconded three people into the Presidency to help with the process and it resulted in reforms that we think are going to help us really solve the electricity crisis more in the medium term. “We engaged on the basis of how we could unlock greater private sector investment in self-generation. ![]() On the Eskom side, setting up of workshops has taken place involving the Presidency, the Minerals Council, the Electricity Intensive Users Group and the Ferroalloy Producers Association. We have more than 250 mining companies that are members of the Minerals Council and a significant percentage of those are junior and emerging mining entities and we are addressing their particular issues as we go forward,” Baxter said. “Often people have the view that we only represent the large-scale majors. ![]() “It is part of our process to ensure that our members are accommodated because we do represent the junior and emerging mining sectors. “We’ve had that in place for the last five years but we’re also looking at additional measures we can take to enable juniors and emerging miners to participate in exports over time. In this regard, Baxter made mention of the large junior and emerging miner membership of the Minerals Council and emphasised the work being done with the council’s junior and emerging miner membership, served by a dedicated team. ![]()
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