South Africa's coal industry could need to spend as much as R22.5bn to supply the 45 million tonnes of extra coal to national utility Eskom, according to local reports.
Under present market conditions, every one million tonnes of extra supply requires R500m of investment, mining company Anglo Coal told Reuters.
At present, mining companies Anglo Coal, Exxaro Resources and BHP Billiton supply Eskom with about 100 million tonnes of its annual consumption but annual demand has now hit 125 million tonnes, the company says.
Eskom is desperate to build up supplies of the fuel to meet severe power shortages which brought a halt to mining in the country last month.
By staff writer
