{"id":23169,"date":"2026-03-02T17:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/23169\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T17:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:45:20","slug":"south-african-smelter-defers-lay-offs-after-electricity-tariff-cut-ethrworld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/23169\/","title":{"rendered":"South African smelter defers lay-offs after electricity tariff cut, ETHRWorld"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"590\" height=\"442\" class=\"unveil\" loading=\"eager\" style=\"width:100%;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/128950547.cms.jpeg\" captionrendered=\"1\" alt=\"&lt;p&gt;The Glencore-Merafe joint venture in December postponed the job cuts to February 28, to allow talks on electricity discounts&lt;\/p&gt;\"\/>The Glencore-Merafe joint venture in December postponed the job cuts to February 28, to allow talks on electricity discounts<a id=\"19899437\" type=\"General\" weightage=\"20\" keywordseo=\"South-Africa\" source=\"keywords\" class=\"news-keywords\" href=\"https:\/\/hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/south+africa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a>&#8216;s <a id=\"33719597\" type=\"General\" weightage=\"100\" keywordseo=\"Merafe-Resources\" source=\"keywords\" class=\"news-keywords\" href=\"https:\/\/hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/merafe+resources\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Merafe Resources<\/a> said on Monday it had deferred lay-off procedures at its ferrochrome smelting joint venture with <a id=\"32005049\" type=\"General\" weightage=\"20\" keywordseo=\"Glencore\" source=\"keywords\" class=\"news-keywords\" href=\"https:\/\/hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/glencore\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Glencore<\/a> until March 31 after state power utility <a id=\"33719598\" type=\"General\" weightage=\"20\" keywordseo=\"Eskom\" source=\"keywords\" class=\"news-keywords\" href=\"https:\/\/hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/eskom\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eskom<\/a> \u200cagreed \u2060to cut electricity \u2060tariffs.<\/p>\n<p> The Glencore-Merafe joint venture in December postponed the job cuts to February 28, to allow talks on electricity discounts.<\/p>\n<p>* <a href=\"https:\/\/hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/eskom\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eskom<\/a> on Friday announced a reduced electricity tariff of 0.62 rand ($0.0386) per \u2060kilowatt hour \u200cfor Glencore-Merafe and Samancor Chrome, after earlier agreeing to a \u2060tariff of 0.88 rand per kilowatt hour.<\/p>\n<p> * Tariff cut subject to approval by <a href=\"https:\/\/hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/south+africa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a>&#8216;s energy regulator.<\/p>\n<p> * The ferrochrome firms were paying 1.36 rand per kilowatt hour before the reduction.<\/p>\n<p>* Trade unions say as many \u200cas 5,000 jobs are in danger if the two companies shut their smelters.<\/p>\n<p>* \u2060The government says only 11 out of 66 smelters are currently operational, due to high electricity costs.<\/p>\n<p>* South African smelters are struggling to compete with Chinese rivals due to high power costs.<\/p>\n<p>    ($1 = 16.0623 rand) (Reporting by Nelson Banya; Editing by Kirsten Donovan )\n                                                                    <\/p>\n<p>                                    Published On Mar 2, 2026 at 09:21 PM IST<\/p>\n<p>\n                Join the community of 2M+ industry professionals.<br \/>\n                Subscribe to Newsletter to get latest insights &amp; analysis in your inbox.\n            <\/p>\n<p>                    All about ETHRWorld industry right on your smartphone! <\/p>\n<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"90\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/hr_barcode.png\" alt=\"\"\/>                        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Glencore-Merafe joint venture in December postponed the job cuts to February 28, to allow talks on electricity&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[123],"tags":[14882,14881,132,14880,7323],"class_list":["post-23169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-glencore","tag-electricity-tariff-cut","tag-eskom","tag-glencore","tag-merafe-resources","tag-south-africa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}