The South African Government has confirmed that it will allow mines to operate at 95 per cent power.

The five per cent increase will be phased in across two weeks and will allow mines to operate near to 100 per cent for the first time since they ceased operation for five days in January.

Since then they have been operating on 90 per cent and Eskom's decision will help to ease the pressure on platinum mines.

"This agreement has been reached to alleviate the heavy disruptive burden and possible large retrenchments," said the Department of Mining and Minerals.

An extra 260MW of power will be provided to the mines, although some firms will not benefit from the increase.

According to Reuters, Anglo Platinum will continue to operate at 90 per cent because of damage to one of its smelters.

The firm has shut down the smelter so it can be repaired and Trevor Raymond, the Head of Investor Relations, revealed that they would not operate over 90 per cent.

"At the moment we can't use 95 percent even if we wanted to, because we have a smelter offline, so we're below 90 percent," he explained.

The new allocation from Eskom will be distributed over two weeks and the Government has indicated that mines will get priority.

"The criteria in determining this allocation will include minimising the disruptive impact on the mining industry, job losses and mine safety," it said.

Source:

Electricity boost for S Africa mines, 08/03/08
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/965b6038-ecb4-11dc-86be-0000779fd2ac.html

Reuters

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