When the eastern wall of a tailings storage facility at the Williamson diamond mine, in Tanzania, was breached on November 7 last year, precautionary measures to contain the tailings material and strengthen the New Alamasi water dam were carried out at the operation which is owned 75% by London-listed Petra Diamonds and 25% by the government [...]

Following the Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court’s dismissal of the National Employers Association of South Africa’s (Neasa’s) applications for interdicting the extension of the Consolidated Main Agreement in the metals and engineering industry, the association plans to file a petition at the Constitutional Court. The original Labour Court judgment dismissed Neasa’s application to interdict [...]

As chronic loadshedding continues indefinitely, a behind-the-scenes dispute has broken out between National Treasury and Eskom over where the money should come from to buy more diesel.  The only immediate way to reduce loadshedding is for Eskom to burn diesel to power its open-cycle gas turbines. All other possible solutions to reduce loadshedding have a [...]

Ireland-based international aircraft leasing company Avolon (which has an owned, managed and committed fleet of 835 aircraft) expected global air traffic to return to pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels by June this year. The forecast was contained in a report released by the company on Monday, entitled “2023 Outlook: Climb to Cruise”, which was co-authored by Avolon [...]

London-listed Africa-focused Petra Diamonds announced on Monday that the historic Koffiefontein diamond mine would be placed on care-and-maintenance. As reported by Mining Weekly in May last year, Petra was exploring a responsible exit from its investment in the Koffiefontein diamond mining operations, together with black economic empowerment partners Kago Diamonds and the Itumelang employee trust. [...]

South Africa should ensure the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting conversation in Davos, Switzerland, this week reinforces the country’s just energy transition plan, and that it achieves international solidarity across business and political spheres to ensure they are part of the project of decarbonising the country's economy, while ensuring energy security and supporting development, [...]

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen departs Tuesday to visit three African countries central to President Joe Biden’s strategy to rejuvenate ties on the continent and counter China’s influence across the developing world. The 11-day journey comes just a month after Biden hosted more than 40 African leaders in Washington, where $15-billion in new commitments and [...]

The Energy Commission of Ghana has signed an agreement to use energy modelling company Energy Exemplar’s modelling software to understand the entire energy landscape across Ghana, including gas and electricity, the company said this week. The Ghanian government aims to increase the proportion of renewables in the national mix from 42.5 MW to 1 363 [...]

The British government's funding of up to $1.15-billion for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Mozambique is lawful, a London court ruled on Friday, dismissing an appeal by Friends of the Earth. The environmental campaign group had asked London's Court of Appeal to rule the British government wrongly decided funding the project, led by [...]

As South Africa remains in the grips of Stage 6 loadshedding - with large electricity tariff hikes also now on the cards - Mineral Resources and Energy minister Gwede Mantashe claims the power crisis can be tackled within just six to 12 months.  "Eskom must do introspection: do we have the capacity to deal with [...]

State-owned energy utility Eskom says it appreciates the tough tariff decision made by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years, for which the utility has been granted tariff increases of 18.65% and 12.74%, respectively. The utility says it is confident the decision will positively contribute from a [...]

An international team of researchers have developed a method to store kinetic energy, which can later be converted to electrical energy, using decommissioned underground mines. The Underground Gravity Energy Storage (UGES) concept, developed through a study led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), works by using the weight of sand and letting [...]