Can you give an overview of Seriti and the company’s role in the South African mining industry?

Seriti is a 91% black-owned and controlled South African mining company co-owned by four anchor shareholders - Community Investment Holdings, Masimong Group Holdings, Zungu Investments Company, and Thebe Investment Corporation. These shareholders came together when the opportunity arose to acquire Anglo American’s coal assets in 2017.  We successfully secured three collieries - New Vaal, New Denmark, and Kriel - which are dedicated to supplying coal to Eskom power stations. In the transaction, we were also able to acquire the New Largo asset, a resource of 585 million mt and the potential to become a large-scale, long-life coal mine, able to supply Eskom’s adjacent Kusile power station with around 12 million mt/y of thermal coal over 50 years.

Having operated these three mines successfully for three years, Seriti made an offer to acquire South32’s SA Coal Holdings Proprietary Limited (SAEC). Seriti sees it as a good opportunity to grow and enter the export market. SAEC has been renamed Seriti Power.

Today we are operating eight mines and are effectively the biggest coal mining company in Africa. The company continues to look for opportunities in other mining industry sectors and beyond South Africa’s borders.  

Beyond coal, we will look for opportunities in, for example, manganese mining and others.

What investments is Seriti exploring to increase the company’s presence in the renewable energy space?

Although coal will remain the most viable baseload energy source for South Africa in the near term, a just and responsible transition to a less carbon-intensive economy and world is a goal we support. The level of South Africa’s coal dependence must and will reduce significantly as we usher in renewables and other forms of energy generation. Seriti will certainly look for opportunities there. In doing so, we must look after jobs and look after the communities that will be affected by this downscaling of coal.

South Africa’s 30-year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) aims at reducing the country’s fossil fuel energy generation from 70% today to 43% by 2030. The country’s power utility will have to start looking at other forms of energy generation. Older coal-fired power stations will be decommissioned, while the remaining ones will need to be retrofitted with technologies that reduce carbon emissions, including carbon capture and storage. Jobs lost in coal mining must be absorbed by emerging sectors in the energy generation space.

If the opportunity arises for Seriti to become a player in the alternative energy generation space, we will not hesitate to take it. South Africa will, however, continue to depend on coal-fired power for at least another 20 years. The energy transition will reduce local demand for coal, but the export market will continue to offer opportunities.

How is Seriti mining coal responsibly?

ESG principles are at the heart of our business and drive our commitment to transform the South African mining industry. We need to prevent dust impacts on employee and community health, we need to look after our communities. We need to rehabilitate land that has been disturbed by mining. And we need to ask how rehabilitated land can be effectively used for economic advancement. The health and safety of employees and communities is key.

To what extent does the current mining charter promote investment?

The charter is meant to transform the industry to include those people who had been unable to participate in the ownership and management of the industry in the past. This has been understood by investors. It is constant changes in empowerment legislation that create uncertainty and deter investment, even for investors like ourselves.  We hope we now have more certainty and clarity through the engagement and discussion that has occurred.