SA Peak Coal

Here is a thought not taken into the IRP2 planning process: What if Peak Coal were hit to South Africa in 2020? Similar to peak oil, the argument is that a few years after discoveries have peaked, production will peak too, and this is independent of an increasing resource price. But the SA context is a little different, with the current reserves having just been DOWNSIZED from 50 gigatonnes to 15 gigatonnes!

This is detailed in a report from the consultancy Umvoto, a summary of which can be found here.

So it seems that there may be a new pressure coming to move away from coal: price.

Frank