By: Creamer media

Japie Fullard, CEO of Glencore Alloys, will meet Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa on Friday in an effort to save its venture with Merafe Resources that processes chrome ore into ferrochrome, the executive said in an interview. A ministry spokesperson confirmed the meeting.

South Africa, home to the world’s largest deposits of chrome ore, has struggled with expensive and often unreliable power supply, leading to the closure of furnaces and shifting the stainless-steel supply chain overseas — mainly to China. Power costs have surged eightfold since 2008, according to the Energy Intensive Users Group, whose members account for about 40% of the nation’s electricity consumption.

While electricity deals with State-owned utility Eskom Holdings have been negotiated in the past, “the discount that they gave us is not sufficient enough for us to be able to be competitive toward China,” Fullard said. “My feeling is that they really want to help,” he said of the government.

The sustained decline of South Africa’s ferrochrome industry started due to a lack of power supply as China’s advantage grew with cheap electricity and labour, according to Fullard, who’s been forced to shut down the Rustenburg and Lydenburg smelters in recent years.

In June, South Africa’s government approved a plan to support the ferrochrome industry, by agreeing on new electricity tariffs as well as introducing controls and taxes for exports of chrome ore. Those reforms are yet to be finalized.

Keeping operations on hold is costing Glencore billions of rand, something the company is only able to do until the end of the year as time is running out to find a solution.

“I’m still paying the people a hundred percent their salary without creating one ton of ferrochrome,” Fullard said.