Cape Times 2025-04-11

The share price of Renergen, JSE-listed owner of South Africa's only onshore gas production facility, increased sharply by over 15% on Thursday after it announced a significant success in an ongoing legal dispute. Renergen has successfully appealed a MDPRA (Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act) approval that had been granted to another company, Springbok Solar Power Plant (RF). A dispute had arisen between Renergen subsidiary Tetra4 and RF regarding their solar development encroaching upon Tetra4's production right in Virginia, in the Free State. Tetra4 had instituted urgent motion proceedings in the High Court of South Africa, Free State Division, seeking an interim interdict restraining the solar developer from proceeding with construction activities. The matter was heard on February 20, 2025, and judgment has been reserved, with the outcome expected to…

Anglo American on Thursday it was engaging Peabody Energy in discussions to finalise the disposal of its Australian steelmaking coal assets to the United States-based company for $3.7 billion. Although the transaction is still subject to outstanding customary conditions, fresh uncertainty has characterised the deal after an underground ignition event usually related to methane gas in coal mining at the Moranbah North Mine at the end of last month. The incident has caused Anglo American to halt production at the mine, one of many up for disposal under the $3.7bn deal with Peabody. “Anglo American continues to work with Peabody towards satisfying the remaining customary conditions in those agreements that are required for completion of the Transaction,” the Johannesburg and London listed miner said Thursday. This followed indications by…

The Minerals Council has warned that load shedding remains a strong possibility for the winter months as energy supply was constrained, with Energy Availability Factor (EAF) at 57.5%. This is according to an electricity update for February to March 2025 released by the Council last week. André Lourens, economist from the council, said that from 7–10 March, a sudden loss of 2 700MW in generation capacity - including Koeberg Unit 2 930MW and two Kusile units - led to increased reliance on Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) to meet demand. “The narrow margin between dispatchable generation and electricity demand underscored these challenges. Average demand for the month stood at 22 509MW, while dispatchable generation averaged 22 357MW, necessitating a total of 55 hours of load shedding during March,” Lourens said.…

South Africa now has an opportunity, during the 90-day window, to broker trade deals, say experts After the rand hit a record high on Wednesday night, flirting with R20 to the greenback and surpassing levels last seen in June 2023, it retreated somewhat on Thursday, trading at around R19.44 around lunch time. This settling came even as systematic issues such as worries over the ongoing stability of the new administration continues to unnerve markets and US President Donald Trump’s 30% tariffs on South Africa came into effect. Nolan Wapenaar, co-chief investment officer at Anchor Capital, said that market prices, global factors and what is impacting the market is changing by the hour. “It has been a busy and volatile week. At the moment, everyone is digesting the latest set of…

Digital technologies hold immense potential for economies’ long-term development. South Africa, through its G20 Presidency, is seizing this transformative opportunity to prioritise digital public infrastructure (DPI) and artificial intelligence (AI), both critical enablers of digital transformation, on this year’s G20 digital agenda. Building on declarations from the past two G20 presidencies, South Africa is now advancing discussions on how to measure the dynamic societal and economic value of DPI. This recognises that the potential benefits of DPI for people and the planet will not come about automatically - yielding them depends on how countries design and implement DPI. On the AI front, following the announcement by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa on establishing the G20 Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, the G20 Presidency particularly seeks to further Africa's…

The Department of Trade Industry and Competition (the dtic) has said the United States' latest shift to reduce tariffs on countries including South Africa to 30% were fertile ground for negotiations. This comes as South Africa's trade representatives prepare to meet with their US counterparts for a concerted approach to the revision of trade facilitation agreements. Speaking on Radio 702 on Thursday morning, Tau said the government was planning its engagement and the issues to engage the US about. Tau said that it was clear the US now wanted only mutually beneficial agreements as it viewed previous tariffs and other structures had been disproportionately skewed in South Africa's favour, along with other countries. "We had already started raising with the US the need to revise the trade and investment facilitation…