Japie Fullard, CEO of Glencore Alloys, will meet Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa on Friday in an effort to save its venture with Merafe Resources that processes chrome ore into ferrochrome, the executive said in an interview. A ministry spokesperson confirmed the meeting.
South Africa, home to the world’s largest deposits of chrome ore, has struggled with expensive and often unreliable power supply, leading to the closure of furnaces and shifting the stainless-steel supply chain overseas — mainly to China. Power costs have surged eightfold since 2008, according to the Energy Intensive Users Group, whose members account for about 40% of the nation’s electricity consumption.
While electricity deals with State-owned utility Eskom Holdings have been negotiated in the past, “the discount that they gave us is not sufficient enough for us to be able to be competitive toward China,” Fullard said. “My feeling is that they really want to help,” he said of the government.