South Africa's national power generator, Eskom, said Thursday that there has been very little coal delivered to its power stations during the 10-day wildcat strikes at five Exxaro Resources mines.
Eskom spokesman Hilary Joffe said the utility had 48 days worth of coal stockpiles Thursday, which were running down as the strikes wear on.
"There has been very little in the way of coal deliveries since the strike began and we are becoming concerned...At this time of year we are usually building up our stockpiles ready for winter, but instead we have had to run them down," Joffe said.
According to the National Union of Mineworkers, around 8,000 miners are taking part in an illegal strike over unpaid bonuses at the operations in the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces.
The unofficial walkouts began March 5 at Exxaro's Arnot and Matla coal operations and had spread to the Leeuwpan, Grootegeluk and Inyanda mines by the end of last week.
Exxaro spokesman Hilton Atkinson confirmed that the illegal strikes were still ongoing at the five mines.
The NUM's national spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said that the union doubted Exxaro's commitment to resolving the strikes, noting that the mining company was claiming that workers would have to return to work before negotiations would begin. He said that due to the current disposition of the workers, this was unlikely to happen.
Exxaro produces 42.2 million mt/year of power station coal from eight mines and is the second-largest coal producer in South Africa. Eskom estimated its coal burn for 2012 at 126 million mt.
