[miningmx.com] – SOUTH Africa’s mining industry was able to work around the likelihood of a prolonged schedule of power interruptions as it had been dealing with the problem since 2008, said Bloomberg News.
Citing the Chamber of Mines and the Energy Intensive Users Group of Southern Africa, who members include BHP Billiton and ArcelorMittal, the newswire said however that power shortages would damage growth in the mining sector.
“It’s going to have an impact, it is not necessarily business as usual, but the point is the country at a broader level is now carrying the burdens,’ said Chamber of Mines COO, Roger Baxter. “The greater shame is that not having sufficient electricity supply has actually curtailed the development of further mines,’ he said.
Eskom said last week that it was highly probable load-shedding would continue until the utility had built sufficient capacity.
Said Shaun Nel, spokesman for EIUG: “Any time there are capacity constraints it affects productivity, but the reality of the situation is we’ve been dealing with this since 2008. These are not extraordinary circumstances.’
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