18 Jun 2023

The Vice President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane, has appealed to Morupule Coal Mine to explore the value chain development in the coal industry.

Mr Tsogwane was speaking during his tour of Morupule Coal Mine on Thursday.

He urged the mine to observe the global trend, adding ‘today we are talking about clean energy and greenhouse gases. We should be in a position to be saying what this meant to us. Where is the value preposition of these products going forward?’

He, however, said he was glad that Morupule Coal Mine was talking about value chain development and not ‘the old story’ of extraction and exportation of raw materials.

Mr Tsogwane also pleaded with Morupule Coal Mine to look into the risks of the industry and plan ahead of times.

He also called for consideration of the environmental sustainability and integrated energy.

“We have talked about deforestation because some sectors of government are dependent on wood,” he said.

Some ministries, Mr Tsogwane said, were culprits since they harvested a lot of wood. 

Therefore, he urged them to comply with clean energy initiatives.

The Vice President also applauded Morupule mine for transforming from original objectives of extracting and exporting the raw materials.

“We know that you will never get a complete value of your product when you follow such processes, we are very much aware of that but it is a process where we all started and moved with times,” he said.

The mine’s chief executive officer, Mr Edwin Elias, said they were working on a strategy, which should be completed before the end of the year.

He said it was the mine’s intention to create value for stakeholders in an innovative and agile manner as well as respond to any market challenges.

Mr Elias said they envisioned to become a partner of choice on global coal transition.

He also assured the Vice President that the mine would identify the right partners to create value from the product as they move into clean energy. Ends