Page 8 - AfrElec Week 38 2022

AfrElec COAL AfrElec

Thungela Resources, union NUM

sign three-year wage agreement

SOUTH AFRICA JSE- and LSE-listed coal miner and exporter same financial year in which they are declared, as
Thungela Resources has signed a three-year opposed to vesting over a period of three years.
wage agreement with the National Union of “We are very pleased to have reached an
Mineworkers (NUM) of South Africa, which agreement with our employees and I thank the
represents 86% of unionised employees in the NUM for their collaboration and constructive
country, Mining Weekly reports. engagement during the wage negotiation pro-
Thungela Resources was spun out of Anglo cess,” said Thungela chief executive officer July
American in June 2021. In August, the coal Ndlovu. “The agreement recognises the impor-
miner reported a record profit of ZAR 9.6bn tant role that our employees have in responsibly
($542mn) on the back of strong export coal creating value together for a shared future.”
prices, compared with ZAR 351mn ($20mn) in RMB Morgan Stanley in a note to clients ana-
the first half of 2021. lysing the wage agreement said it would have
The deal between the thermal coal producer expected the lower band to have been increased
and the NUM -- which comes amid rising con- by more than 6% while noting that the employee
sumption of coal globally in 2022, taking it back trust holds some extraordinary dividends.
to the record level it reached nearly a decade ago, “Overall this is a good outcome. We were con-
according to an International Energy Agency cerned about wage cost inflation in the context
(IEA) report -- will enable the implementation of the extraordinary price environment. We’d felt
of a new wage agreement across Thungela’s oper- that large ex-gracia payments would contribute
ations, other than Mafube, which runs an inde- to well-above inflation wage increases. The cat-
pendent wage negotiation process. alyst for the improvement in thermal coal prices
The wage agreement is effective from June 1 was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which has led
and covers a period of three years through to the to a cut in Russian gas supplies to Europe,” the
end of May 2025, Thungela said in a press release. note reads.
It increases salary and salary-related allowances In a coal market update report in late July,
and is expected to increase the total labour cost- the IEA said global coal consumption is forecast
to-company, on average, by about 6% a year over to rise by 0.7% in 2022 to 8bn tonnes, assuming
the three-year period. the Chinese economy recovers as expected in
Under the agreement, Thungela and the the second half of the year. Coal consumption
NUM will engage with the board of trustees of rebounded last year by some 6% as economies
the SACO Employee Partnership Plan (EPP) began recovering from the COVID-19 pan-
Trust to review and amend the trust deed to ena- demic, contributing to the biggest-ever annual
ble the payment of awards made to the EPP in the increase in carbon dioxide emissions.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 38 22•September•2022