South African coal transporters could see a significant uptick in business following the opening of a new Botswanan mine in the third quarter of 2019.
Mmamabula coal mine, owned by Maatla Resources (a subsidiary of coal and energy new-comer Maatla Energy), is on track to open next year. The company’s environmental impact assessment has been approved and it is confident that it will recieve its mining license within the next quarter.
Jacques Badenhorst, ceo of Maatla Energy, told FTW Online that they would be focusing on the South African market which was more lucrative than global exports at this stage.
“At the moment Eskom is in the process of acquiring 11 million tonnes of coal to ensure electricity supply during the winter months.This is going to create further pressure for the local-sized coal market supply in South Africa. We aim to capitalise on this trend, which we believe will continue for the foreseeable future.”
Badenhorst added that the mine’s location provided a key advantage. “Botswana is significantly closer to the Northern Cape than the Middleburg coal mines. We are also well positioned to take advantage of Transnet’s Waterberg-Botswana coal rail link when construction is complete, a development that will reduce the distance to Richards Bay Port by 400kms and could see us exploring a potential opportunity to provide exports to the global market.”
The South African sized coal market is approximately 16 million tonnes of coal per annum. Maatla Resources expects to export 1.2 million tonnes of coal per annum into the southern African region, making use of a mixture of rail and road. “We predict that our coal will be transported using a combination of both Botswana Railways and Transnet, as well as road freight. The details, however, will be at the discretion of the trader.”
Badenhorst added that the opportunity to supply equipment and consumables to the mine, once it was up and running, was currently on tender.
