[miningmx.com] – ESKOM felt as if Glencore was holding “a gun to its head” in coal contract negotiations, said Bloomberg News citing the comments of Brian Molefe, CEO of Eskom.
“Glencore had mentioned that if they stopped supply of coal from their mine to Hendrina, that would increase load shedding and I felt at that point that that was bad faith,” Molefe said.
He was referring to negotiations in which Glencore asked for a coal sales price of R530 per tonne from its Optimum Coal Mine to replace the existing R150/t contract. Glencore argued Optimum Coal was lossmaking.
“They had something that they thought could get us to pay an exorbitant amount for their coal. Basically, from where I was sitting rightly or wrongly I felt like they were holding a gun” to my head, said Molefe.
“But we were able to procure coal at less than the price they were asking” and the power plant didn’t shut down.
Optimum was placed into business rescue and is currently in the process of being sold to Tegeta Exploration and Resources for R2.15bn.
Click here to read the full article
