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A second renewable-energy project has been announced for heavy mineral sands extraction and refining company Richards Bay Minerals (RBM), which mines in northern KwaZulu-Natal and produces materials used in a wide range of everyday products, from paints to smartphones. In 2022, the Rio Tinto group company signed a renewables agreement with Voltalia for the Bolobedu solar PV plant in Limpopo. which is currently in progress and which is anticipated to meet 17% of RBM’s power consumption by generating up to 300 GWh/y of renewable energy.

Local integrated energy company NOA Group Holdings has entered into a 25-year energy supply agreement with NYSE-listed titanium dioxide pigment manufacturer Tronox Holdings for its South African operating sites. Under the terms of the agreement, NOA will supply Tronox’s operations in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape with 497 GWh of renewable energy.

Eskom CEO Dan Marokane has rebuffed persistent suggestions that the utility is keeping loadshedding at bay owing to an “excessive” reliance on the diesel-fuelled open cycle gas turbines, reporting that it spent R285-million on diesel during May compared with R2.8-billion in the same month last year and against a budget for the month of R1.7-billion. Addressing the South African National Energy Association AGM against a backdrop of deep suspicion about how Eskom has managed to avoid resorting to rotational power cuts for 71 days, including over a highly competitive election period, Marokane attributed the stabilisation to the Generation Recovery Plan, which had been under way since March 2023.

Early in May, King Philippe of Belgium was on the edge of the Namib desert to inaugurate a project that aims to help decarbonize European industry, and which might just enable one of Africa’s smallest economies to hit the clean-energy big time. It was a humble start for such grand designs, as Namibian President Nangolo Mbumba hosted the king at an unfinished site near the port of Walvis Bay on the southern Atlantic Ocean, the baking rust-colored dunescape silent except for an occasional truck passing on the new roadway.

Investment in clean energy technologies will climb to $2-trillion this year, almost double the amount spent on fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Two-thirds of the record $3-trillion invested in energy sources in 2024 will be devoted to sectors such as renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage and efficiency, even as higher financing costs hinder projects, the Paris-based agency said. The remaining $1-trillion will go to coal, gas and oil — a level that’s still too high to conform with global climate goals.

The Botswana government may raise its shareholding in global diamond miner De Beers, President Mokgweetsi Masisi told JCK News, after parent company Anglo American said it plans to spin off or sell the business. The government owns a 15% stake in De Beers and Botswana accounts for 70% of the company’s annual rough diamond supply.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Kimberley Region has concluded and signed a five-year wage agreement on behalf of its members at globally diversified mining and metals company South 32’s Hotazel Manganese Mines, in the Northern Cape. The union says the parties agreed to the harmonisation of B-Lower level employees, effective from June 1.

London-listed Ironveld, which owns a high-purity iron, vanadium and titanium project on the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex, in Limpopo, South Africa, says it is assessing its options as it may not be able to secure the funding it was previously expecting to close by the first half of this year. The company has been in discussions with a South African financial institution regarding asset level financing of mining and smelting activities at the project.

A second renewable-energy project has been announced for heavy mineral sands extraction and refining company Richards Bay Minerals (RBM), which mines in northern KwaZulu-Natal and produces materials used in a wide range of everyday products, from paints to smartphones. In 2022, the Rio Tinto group company signed a renewables agreement with Voltalia for the Bolobedu solar PV plant in Limpopo. which is currently in progress and which is anticipated to meet 17% of RBM’s power consumption by generating up to 300 GWh/y of renewable energy.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Kimberley Region has concluded and signed a five-year wage agreement on behalf of its members at globally diversified mining and metals company South 32’s Hotazel Manganese Mines, in the Northern Cape. The union says the parties agreed to the harmonisation of B-Lower level employees, effective from June 1.