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        <title>Mining Weekly | Editorial Insight</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Visit Mining Weekly for the latest articles in Editorial Insight]]></description>
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            <title>Big lingering questions</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/big-lingering-questions-2026-04-17</link>
            <description><![CDATA[During the most recent energy crisis – triggered by attacks by the US and Israel on Iran that resulted in the near closure of the Strait of Hormuz energy corridor ahead of a tenuous ceasefire – one could argue South Africa took some decisions aimed at containing the threats, and creating space to consider the next steps. Presumably under the direction of the task team created by President Cyril Ramaphosa, government moved to ease the immediate financial pain by cutting fuel levies, in line with the actions of several of its peers.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ENERGY POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Power play</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/power-play-2026-04-10</link>
            <description><![CDATA[A stand-out statement in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s February 12 State of the Nation Address (SoNA) was the following: “We are restructuring Eskom and establishing a fully independent State-owned transmission entity. This entity will have ownership and control of transmission assets and be responsible for operating the electricity market. Given the importance of this restructuring for the broader reform of the electricity sector, I have established a dedicated task team under the National Energy Crisis Committee to address various issues relating to the restructuring process, including clear timeframes for its phased implementation. It will report to me within three months.” The remarks were viewed as particularly significant mainly because they contradicted an unbundling plan announced by Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa only a few weeks earlier and which arose from Eskom’s internal deliberations on the future of its unbundling.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Time to get serious</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/time-to-get-serious-2026-04-03</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The discussion about the future of South Africa's domestic oil refinery fleet is a long and complicated one. It has naturally flared again because of the security of supply concerns associated with recent disruptions to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This has brought to the fore how little domestic crude refining capacity actually remains in place, with only Natref and the Astron refinery still operational in a fleet that, at one point, had a nameplate of over 700 000 bl/d when the coal- and gas-to-liquids refineries are included.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ENERGY POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Performance focus</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/performance-focus-2026-03-27</link>
            <description><![CDATA[That many of South Africa’s 257 municipalities are in crisis is not in question. Also painfully clear is that many metropolitan councils, which oversee the country’s six largest cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City and Mangaung, are facing governance and delivery problems that were almost unthinkable a few decades ago. The economic and social consequences of this reality are beyond serious.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: METRO COUNCILS</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>717635</a_id>
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            <title>Fundamentally disrupted</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/fundamentally-disrupted-2026-03-20</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Peace is not merely the absence of war. Yet when conflicts rage, the foremost priority is always to find ways to stop the killing and the destruction of infrastructure. Only then is there any prospect of finding a pathway to a just peace. In a context where multilateral off-ramps for ending conflicts are blocked, or are simply ignored, it is difficult for non-belligerents to have any influence, however.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: FOREIGN POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>717084</a_id>
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            <title>Lucky for some</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/lucky-for-some-2026-03-13</link>
            <description><![CDATA[On Friday March 13, 1981, the first edition of Engineering News, then a fortnightly tabloid newspaper, officially made its debut as a specialist business-to-business publication. The date itself may have alarmed the more superstitious among us, but the political-economy into which the venture was born was arguably even scarier.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: OUR ANNIVERSARY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Important shifts</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/important-shifts-2026-03-06</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The overarching theme of last week’s Budget was definitely the fiscal turning point that has now finally been reached. Debt is being stabilised and the trajectory of the deficit is narrowing, allowing the National Treasury to avert new taxes and revert to providing inflationary relief  to taxpayers. The two main underlying stories of the Budget, however, are moves to shift the composition of spending and to begin introducing structures that could start improving the quality of spending.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: BUDGET 2026</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>716086</a_id>
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            <title>Trading spaces</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/trading-spaces-2026-02-27</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Electricity trading in South Africa, as Etana Energy CEO Evan Rice explained recently, is at once active and in transition. Just how active, is reflected in a report commissioned by the South African Energy Traders Association and compiled by research firm Krutham. The report includes results from a survey conducted in February, showing that of the 4.7 GW of private-contracted power projects to have reached financial close in the period from 2023 to end-2025, projects with a combined nameplate of 2.6 GW, representing 56% of this category of projects, were underpinned by contracts with eight traders.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>715526</a_id>
        <updated>1771918576</updated>
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            <title>Moral hazard</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/moral-hazard-2026-02-20</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There is currently a marked difference between how Eskom and Transnet are being assessed against their respective reform milestones. While the State electricity producer is being adjudged, correctly, as backsliding, its freight logistics counterpart is mostly being praised for the progress it is making in opening the port and rail networks to private participants. For instance, the latest Operation Vulindlela quarterly report assigns a green colour-code representing progress for all the reform components it is monitoring in the area of logistics, albeit with some delays. By contrast, two of the five electricity reforms being monitored – completing the restructuring of Eskom, and reforming the electricity distribution industry – are colour-coded orange, indicating that the reforms are facing significant challenges.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ECONOMIC REFORM</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>714977</a_id>
        <updated>1771585963</updated>
        <published>1771538400</published>
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            <title>Big decisions loom</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/big-decisions-loom-2026-02-13</link>
            <description><![CDATA[South Africa is weighing a range of policy measures as various manufacturing sectors – from ferroalloys and steel, to automotives – face existential threats. The causes of their eroded competitiveness are familiar to all South Africans: soaring electricity prices, surging imports, logistics bottlenecks and, more recently, a strengthening rand.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: INDUSTRIAL POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>714383</a_id>
        <updated>1770709497</updated>
        <published>1770933600</published>
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            <title>Welcome visibility</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/welcome-visibility-2026-02-06</link>
            <description><![CDATA[A new data portal made publicly available recently by the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) provides some encouraging insight into the country’s power generation project pipeline. The prosaically titled ‘Generation Customer Connection Data Dashboard’ confines its attention to projects that have either received a grid connection budget quote, or BQ, or have applied for a BQ.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>714045</a_id>
        <updated>1770105605</updated>
        <published>1770328800</published>
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            <title> Central defensive midfield</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/central-defensive-midfield-2026-01-30</link>
            <description><![CDATA[In his prime, it was typical for fans of those teams in which French international footballer N'Golo Kanté played, including Chelsea, to quip that “70% of the Earth is covered by water, the rest by N'Golo Kanté”. Many opposing fans were often forced to agree grudgingly. Kanté epitomised the type of footballer who could sniff out danger and react pre-emptively to make crucial interceptions or close spaces that could otherwise become pockets of threat.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: BANK INDEPENDENCE</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>713378</a_id>
        <updated>1769754208</updated>
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            <title>Stability versus resilience</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/stability-versus-resilience-2026-01-23</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The revised Eskom unbundling strategy announced is emerging as something of a touchstone for government’s commitment – or otherwise – to reforming the structure of an electricity industry that has held back growth and weighed on investor confidence for nearly 20 years. When the unbundling strategy was confirmed in the 2019 ‘Roadmap for Eskom in a Reformed Electricity Supply Industry’, the utility was facing deep financial, operational and governance crises. It had become clear that a new market design and set of institutional arrangements were required to reduce the risk that Eskom’s vertically integrated structure was not only posing theoretically, but was imposing in reality.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>713021</a_id>
        <updated>1768891957</updated>
        <published>1769119200</published>
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        <editor>Terence Creamer</editor>
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            <title>Danger signs</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/danger-signs-2026-01-16</link>
            <description><![CDATA[“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper following the US’s military invasion of Venezuela. Miller then went on to underline and even amplify this might-makes-right argument when pressed by Tapper about whether the use of military force in Greenland could be ruled out considering assertions by President Donald Trump indicating that the US “needed” Greenland for security reasons.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>712571</a_id>
        <updated>1768288591</updated>
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        <editor>Terence Creamer</editor>
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            <title>I saw the crescent . . .</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/i-saw-the-crescent--2025-12-12</link>
            <description><![CDATA[As the sun sets on 2025, South Africa’s long-awaited recovery is becoming visible like the first sliver of a waxing crescent days after a new moon. While still modest, the 0.5% GDP expansion in the third quarter represents the longest period (four consecutive quarters) of sustained growth by the South African economy since Covid.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: SOUTH AFRICA</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>711398</a_id>
        <updated>1765523195</updated>
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            <title>Shift in mood</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/shift-in-mood-2025-12-05</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The complex and multidimensional nature of life in any country means that more than one thing is invariably true at the same time. Moreover, these truths can be highly contradictory, or as Charles Dickens put it far more eloquently at the start of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. In many ways, that line summarises the position in which South Africa has found itself for much of 2025.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: SOUTH AFRICA</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>710721</a_id>
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            <title>Rooted in reality?</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/rooted-in-reality-2025-11-28</link>
            <description><![CDATA[When South Africa transitioned to democracy in the 1990s, and when climate constraints were not yet on the agenda, energy policy was arguably the country’s main industrial policy lever. The country had what was then described by Eskom as “low-cost” and abundant electricity and government used it to attract energy intensive industrial investments, the most high-profile of which were the aluminium smelters in Richards Bay and Maputo.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>710373</a_id>
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            <title>Important shift</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/important-shift-2025-11-21</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There are signs that the long-promised change to the composition of government spending – from consumption to capital investment – is at last taking shape. In his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) address, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced that capital payments will be the fastest growing expenditure item over the coming three years, at 7.5%. This is significant, as gross fixed-capital formation has been in decline as a share of GDP since the 2008 global financial crisis, and currently stands at about 14%; below pre-Covid levels and less than half of the 30% targeted by the National Development Plan.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: INFRASTRUCTURE</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>709813</a_id>
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            <title>Scrap continues</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/scrap-continues-2025-11-14</link>
            <description><![CDATA[When ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) initially announced in January that it would be closing the Newcastle mill and winding down its long-steel businesses in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Mpumalanga, much attention was suddenly given to the price preference system (PPS) for scrap metal. The PPS has been in place since 2013, and was always known to be unpopular among metal recyclers. However, it did not gain much public attention until AMSA’s announcement, owing to its dire implications for 3 500 workers, downstream consumers, as well as the town of Newcastle.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: STEEL</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Head spinning</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/head-spinning-2025-11-07</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Given the many moving parts in play currently within the electricity industry, there is a real risk of becoming distracted from what is truly important. Developments over the past few months alone have been enough to leave one’s head spinning.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Shocked﻿, not surprised</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/shocked-not-surprised-2025-10-31</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The latest edition of the Integrated Resource Plan for electricity, dubbed IRP 2025, has been Gazetted and its contents have not really come as any surprise. But that does not suggest it does not contain shocks. This lack of surprise arises from the fact that, from the very start, the two Minister’s responsible for the updating (which incidentally is meant to happen yearly, but always gets bogged down in years of political horse-trading that tends to crowd out the technoeconomic analysis) continuously signalled that they were in favour of placating various interests under the ‘energy mix’ banner.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY PLANNING</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Sustaining Growth</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/sustaining-growth-2025-10-24</link>
            <description><![CDATA[It is now widely accepted that we live in a misinformation era – one where it has become acceptable, even fashionable, to be anti-science. Scientific consensus is making way for conspiracy theories, and scientists are often treated with far greater scepticism than social media influencers. To be sure, rejecting science is nothing new, with numerous historical examples. Everything from the church’s persecution of Galileo Galilei for his support for the idea that the Earth orbits the Sun, to opposition to the smallpox vaccine in the late eighteenth century (a trend that has contemporary echoes), to the fringe belief, made popular by a former South African president, that HIV did not cause AIDS.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: INNOVATION</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Content over form</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/content-over-form-2025-10-17</link>
            <description><![CDATA[South Africans are naturally strongly opposed to any more hefty electricity hikes, having borne above-inflation increases for years while power disruptions intensified and Eskom’s finances deteriorated to the point where taxpayers were also leaned on heavily to keep the entity afloat. Recent public commitments by Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Eskom chairperson Mteto Nyati, and CEO Dan Marokane to keeping future increases at single-digit levels will, thus, be welcomed.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Debt and theft</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/debt-and-theft-2025-10-10</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The twin crises of surging municipal arrear debt owing to Eskom and rising electricity theft have been lurking for years, and with all efforts to combat the problems having failed. In fact Eskom’s outgoing CFO Calib Cassim warned last week that municipal debt owing to Eskom could reach an eye-watering R300-billion by 2030.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>706794</a_id>
        <updated>1759823613</updated>
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            <title>When to intervene?</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/when-to-intervene-2025-10-03</link>
            <description><![CDATA[When should a Minister intervene at a State-owned company or independent regulator? It’s a difficult question to answer, and will remain so for as long as Ministers have shareholder responsibilities at companies, or line authority over regulators. South Africa’s recent past is littered with examples of Ministers getting it spectacularly wrong. Often because they intervened, or failed to do so, without regard to legality or governance principles, and were motivated instead by political expediency or worse.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: GOVERNANCE</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>706279</a_id>
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            <title>Electrotech vision</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/electrotech-vision-2025-09-26</link>
            <description><![CDATA[South Africa is thankfully surfacing from a of period of prolonged electricity disruption that all but stripped the country of its ability to grow and create jobs for more than a decade. But this prevailing supply stability should not be taken to mean the risks have disappeared. There is a serious investment backlog across the value chain that is being masked by falling demand. In addition, supply stability is not fully concealing the sustainability pressures. On the demand side, these stresses ...]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Market countdown</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/market-countdown-2025-09-19</link>
            <description><![CDATA[It is understandable that few are fully aware of the South African Wholesale Electricity Market (SAWEM) and the likely significance of this complex reform, which represents an important evolutionary step in creating a competitive industry. The launch is tentatively set for April next year, but is likely to be delayed given the number of regulatory approvals still required.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Tariff ﻿pushback</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/tariff-push-back-2025-09-12</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The extreme pace of the 2025 news cycle has made it difficult to remember even the most important developments. For instance, it is difficult to recall the immediate concern raised in January over the way the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) had calculated Eskom’s regulatory asset base (RAB) when making its most recent tariff decision.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>704978</a_id>
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            <title>Decision time</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/decision-time-2025-09-05</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Developments in the South African steel industry offer a glimpse into the pressures being faced by the manufacturing sector as a whole, and the likely industrial and trade policy responses to those pressures. The first thing to recognise is that there is no such thing as a homogenous ‘steel industry’. Yes, the macro themes of oversupply, import competition, and deteriorating power and rail utility services and costs are common across the sector. However, a company’s assessment of what policy response is appropriate depends entirely on that firms positioning within the sector.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: INDUSTRIAL POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>704459</a_id>
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        <editor>Creamer Media Reporter  </editor>
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            <title>Pressure mounting</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/pressure-mounting-2025-08-29</link>
            <description><![CDATA[With industrial and trade policy firmly back on the global agenda, South African industry is becoming more vocal in highlighting the threats posed to South Africa’s industrial capacity by policy developments elsewhere, as well as in calling for government to intervene to protect domestic capacity. Such public appeals were made not only at a recent gathering hosted by the National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers, in Gqeberha, but also by the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) in relation to industrialisation opportunities linked to the Transmission Development Plan (TDP).]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: INDUSTRIAL POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>703995</a_id>
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            <title>Policy first</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/policy-first-2025-08-22</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The message delivered by Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa that the reforms under way in the electricity sector are “irreversible”, is an important one. Doubly so, given that he emphasised it at a briefing attended by senior Eskom executives. The Minister’s statement was made against a backdrop of some anxiety that the reform agenda is at risk of stalling.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY REFORM</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>703504</a_id>
        <updated>1755591115</updated>
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            <title>Reset needed</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/reset-needed-2025-08-15</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There has been an important, yet largely overlooked, shift in South Africa’s approach to meeting its goal of providing universal electricity access by 2030. A proposed revision to the delivery model was outlined by Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa during his Budget Vote speech in July, which included a large portion dedicated specifically to universal access.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: UNIVERSAL ACCESS</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <a_id>702882</a_id>
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            <title>Two steps back?</title>
            <link>https://www.miningweekly.com/article/two-steps-back-2025-08-08</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The idiom ‘one step forward, two steps back’ has surely arisen in the minds of those who have been monitoring developments in the electricity industry over the recent past. It is undeniable that there has been some remarkable progress. The dramatic improvement in electricity stability is a significant achievement, particularly when recalling just how extreme and damaging the power cuts were little over a year-and-a-half ago.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY REFORM</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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