[miningmx.com] — BHP Billiton will know on Friday whether the confidential rates it pays for electricity supply from power utility Eskom for two of its aluminium smelters – Hillside in Richards Bay and Mozal in Maputo – are to become public knowledge.
Business daily Sake24’s Jan de Lange has previously asked the South Gauteng High Court to force Eskom to disclose, in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia), the pricing formula according to which the power utility delivers about 5.7% of its total supply to the two smelters.
Sake24 editor Ryk van Niekerk said the newspaper was notified that the court would hand down judgment on Friday at 10:00.
In its Paia application Sake24 requested three items of information from the agreements between Eskom and BHP regarding the supply of electricity to the aluminium smelters in Mozambique and Richards Bay. These were:
• The formula for calculating the price that BHP pays for electricity supply to the smelters;
• The duration of these contracts;
• The names of the individuals who signed the relevant contracts on behalf of Eskom and BHP Billiton.
“The application was not intended to force closure of the plants but to impart information regarding the matter in view of the overwhelming public interest and concern,’ Van Niekerk said in an editorial published in April.
“Sake24 surmises that BHP Billiton pays considerable less for this electricity than it costs Eskom to generate it, whereas ordinary citizens will be burdened with annual increases of 25%.
“South Africans are straining to subsidise the profits of one of the largest companies in the world, while there is a shortage of electricity in the country.’
