SPECIAL FEATURE
A regional overview of Mpumalanga By John Young
New technologies and new priorities are set to reshape the economy of Mpumalanga.
C
The most popular renewable energy technologies, wind and solar, have little purchase in Mpumalanga but a game-changer could come to the provincial economy in the form of gas. This would allow the province to retain its position as an energy provider and to start moving away from coal. Vast new fields of natural gas have been found off the coast of Mozambique and the large and sophisticated infrastructure that Sasol has built up over the years make it well-placed to fire up a gas-based economy. Sasol (pictured above), an integrated oil, gas and chemicals company with more than 30 000 employees and operations in 31 countries, runs several plants at Secunda. Products manufactured at the complex include synthetic fuel, petroleum, paraffin, jet fuel, creosote, bitumen, diesel and lubricants. The primary feedstock for synthetic-fuel production is coal, and the plant is in the heart of
oal has been the engine of the Mpumalanga economy for many years. Most of South Africa’s power comes from coal, and most of those power stations are in Mpumalanga. More than 80% of South Africa’s coal is currently sourced in Mpumalanga, with the town of eMalahleni (Witbank) being the centre of the industry. Other minerals found in the province include gold, platinum-group minerals, chromite, zinc, cobalt, copper, iron and manganese. Confronting South Africa’s reliance on coal is not something that seems to be on the agenda at the moment, with a good deal of thought and effort going into find ways to get coal to Mpumalanga’s power stations from the next big coal region, the Waterberg. A new railway line is mooted. The lives of a number of Mpumalanga coal mines are being extended and Sasol launched the third of its replacement mines in 2019.
MPUMALANGA BUSINESS 2020/21
6
