Thungela interested in leasing Sasol coal for export

THUNGELA was interested in exporting about two million tons of coal produced by Sasol, the Johannesburg-listed firm’s CEO said on Monday.Sasol said in February it was exiting the export coal market as its production was not of sufficient quality. Its coal processing would be converted to a destoning plant to improve the quality of feedstock into its core synthetic fuel and chemicals business.The petrochemical firm added it would potentially lease its coal and its export entitlement at Richards Bay Coal Terminal to other miners.“If that entitlement is available at a cost that we can utilise cost effectively, for a margin, we will consider it,” said July Ndlovu, CEO of Thungela Resources. “At this stage all we have only heard is that what Sasol intends to do.“We have no discussions with them yet.”He added it might be complex to make use of Sasol’s rail entitlement to RBCT but said: “There should be away around that”.Ndlovu told an analyst earlier on Monday that if the coal could be used “for own production or traded vollumes, and we can do that at a margin accretive rate, we would seriously consider it”.Thungela is back at near capacity in terms of export sales after several years of underperformance owing to Transnet limitations on the export rail to RBCT. The company guided to exports at the upper end of 13.6Mt which requires Transnet to operate the coal line at about 58Mt. Thungela is a 23.56% shareholder in RBCT.Transnet Freight Rail, a division of Transnet, achieved a run-rate of 51.9Mt last year, an improvement of 8.4% with a big improvement in the second half of the year which averaged 56.2Mt (47.3Mt in 2023). Ndlovu said that performance could be bettered this year to as much as 60Mt.“Beyond that there would have to be an addition to equipment, but 55Mt to 60Mt is quite likely,” he said.In total, Thungela’s saleable production totalled 17.7Mt for the 2024 financial year compared to 13.2Mt in 2023. In addition to higher volumes from South Africa, Thungela also benefited from a full year of production at Ensham, its Australian mine which produced 4.1Mt (2023: 1Mt).The post Thungela interested in leasing Sasol coal for export appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com