Power uncertainty may hamper platinum acquisitions, says Implats chief
miningweekly.com
By: Matthew Hill
Published on 6th June 2008
Doubt over State-owned Eskom's ability to provide enough power to South Africa's mining sector will cause setbacks to platinum projects, and could prevent acquisitions in the sector, world number-two producer Impala Platinum (Implats) said on Friday.
"I believe uncertainty in power supply will cause delays in projects, and could hamper acquisitions if no power is available," CEO David Brown told Mining Weekly Online.
On Thursday, he said that it would be difficult for the platinum mining industry to meet demand until there was a "clear plan" on power supply going forward.
"This causes uncertainty in the minds of investors, and could delay projects going forward," Brown stated.
In January, Eskom ran out of surplus generating capacity, which led to the mining industry in the country to essentially shut for five days.
Implats was currently operating at 90% of its November 2007 power consumption, after Eskom asked miners to use 10% less power than usual.
Since then, the power utility had allowed some mining companies that were threatening job losses to increase their usage to 95%.
Brown said that the platinum price would not likely breach the new $2 290/oz record it hit on March 4, provided that there were no further setbacks to production in South Africa, which produced more than two-thirds of global supplies.
Platinum is mainly used in devices that reduce emissions from diesel engines. |
