Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has indicated that he intends approaching Cabinet in the coming weeks to seek approval to extend concessional electricity tariffs similar to those that have already been approved for two ferrochrome producers to other electricity-intensive industries.
In addition, he told delegates to a Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) conference on June 11 that lower tariffs could also be made available to less electricity-intensive sectors such as steel; a sector which he described as strategic and where electricity costs had been flagged as one of the reasons for recent production closures.
Speaking against a backdrop of warnings that the metals and engineering sector was at a deindustrialisation inflection point, Ramokgopa indicated that Eskom’s 62c/kWh tariff for Samancor Chrome and Glencore Merafe’s smelters had been implemented in response to the threat of imminent retrenchments, as well as the potential loss of critical beneficiation capacity.
However, he reported that the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) was compiling a list of other industries that could become eligible for tariff discounts now that Eskom had some 5 000 MW of surplus capacity.
