Can Tutuka be economic?

Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s recent visit to the Tutuka power station near Standerton provided a synopsis of our electricity problem (“Ramokgopa wrong to blame technical issues and not corruption, NUM says”, March 27). Workers promised to improve the power station’s energy availability factor (EAF), now a miserable 25% of capacity. It appears this was for the removal of the present GM, who has a reputation for standing against corruption.

But when speaking of Tutuka’s coal quality problems perhaps Ramokgopa had a point. I drafted the original New Denmark Colliery/Tutuka coal supply agreement. When visiting my son, then a junior geologist at New Denmark, 25 years later, he was reluctant to let me anywhere near his office.

“The agreement” was a source of great contention at New Denmark as the colliery was never able to meet the coal quality specifications I drafted so diligently a quarter of a century before. The damage that must have been done to the boilers and crushing mills during this period and since makes promises of any lasting improvement in EAFs now somewhat optimistic.

Perhaps New Denmark was a colliery too far ... It’s far from Kriel’s shallow, 3m thick coal seam, being one of the deepest Eskom mines still operating. Its far thinner seam is beset with dykes and undulations that make it unsuitable for longwall mining as rock is included in the final product. However, reserve calculations were based on this mining technique rather than bordand-pillar, which leaves 50% behind.

New Denmark will have been supplying coal to Tutuka for 40 years by 2025. How much decent, mineable coal is left? Given its reliability problems, can Tutuka ever be economic to run?

James Cunningham Camps Bay