State-owned logistics and freight agency Transnet has welcomed the 20-year sentence handed down by the Harrismith Regional Court for a 42-year-old man found guilty of tampering with essential infrastructure and stealing diesel. He was arrested for stealing diesel from Transnet’s Multiproduct Pipeline, near Harrismith, in May 2020.

A 50:50 joint venture (JV) between construction company Clough and technological and engineering firm Saipem has been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract for Perdaman Industries’ $2.7-billion urea plant in Western Australia. Clough is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JSE-listed engineering and contracting group Murray & Roberts (M&R).

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has expressed its frustration at not having been invited to participate in a two-day energy summit held in eMalahleni, Mpumalanga, earlier this week. The union says the Mpumalanga government had undermined it as a key stakeholder in the just energy transition. The summit was led by Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tshipane [...]

Despite electric car sales remaining strong this year, future growth will demand greater efforts to diversify battery manufacturing and critical mineral supply to reduce the risk of bottlenecks and price increases, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).  Sales of electric cars (including fully electric and plug-in hybrids) doubled in 2021 to a new record of [...]

Africa will need at least $432-billion to address the effects of Covid-19 on its economies and on the lives of Africans — resources it does not have. This was according to African Development Bank (AfDB) President Dr Akinwumi Adesina who spoke during the release of the 2022 African Economic Outlook report.

South Africa, the world’s thirteenth-biggest source of greenhouse gases, will need to spend $250-billion over the next three decades closing down its coal-fired power plants and replacing them with green energy, according to a study. In addition to closing down the country’s coal-fired plants and building wind and solar power plants, money will need to [...]

A tree-boring beetle the size of a sesame seed could cost South Africa $18.5-billion over the next decade as millions of urban trees are expected to die and will have to be removed and fruit, nut and lumber plantations are harmed, researchers estimate. The polyphagous shot-hole borer, which arrived in South Africa in 2012, has [...]

South Africa's largest metal workers union on Wednesday said it had signed a wage deal with ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA), ending a two-week strike over a pay dispute. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), which embarked on a strike on May 11 demanding a 10% wage hike, said it had agreed on [...]

Ekurhuleni, the industrial hub of more than 3 million people to the east of Johannesburg, may have a head start in the race between South African cities to buy their own power to alleviate crippling outages imposed by the national utility. A program to procure as much as 700 MW of electricity that began in [...]

The Belgian government has announced that it will provide funding of €100-million for research into advanced small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). The money will be given to the country’s SCK-CEN nuclear research centre in tranches of €25-million a year, over four years. The announcement was made at a function marking the 70th anniversary of the [...]

JSE-listed industrial group Reunert’s revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to R5.1-billion for the six months ended March 31, while operating profit increased by 4% to R465-million. The group’s profit after tax increased by 7% to R331-million, while headline earnings a share climbed 1% to R1.95 apiece and earnings a share by 1% to R1.96 apiece.

Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, has warned that a growing tendency by mining executives to "insult the state" is detrimental to the resources sector. "We have observed a growing temptation to insult the state by strong and powerful mining executives.