State-owned power utility Eskom has yet to agree a supply contract for the bulk of coal needed for its newest power station, more than a decade after approving a plan to negotiate with Anglo American. In 2007, an Eskom committee signed off on the start of talks with Anglo for as much as 17-million tons of coal a year from the New Largo mine, located near the Kusile power station northeast of Johannesburg. But construction delays at the plant and protracted talks with the mine’s new owner mean a final agreement may still be 18 months away, Eskom said in a report to the South African parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
