Mining Industry Leaders Give Eskom’s De Ruyter Thumbs Up

Mining industry leaders have on Friday given the new Eskom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Andre de Ruyter the nod, saying the ideas he has presented thus far could improve business confidence.

The power utility’s energy crisis is one of the main factors influencing the economy’s downward trajectory.

Just over a month into the job, De Ruyter has impressed the Minerals Council of South Africa, which said he met with major Eskom clients four days after he took to office.

With a 30-year low in business confidence, falling investments and low levels of growth, business is desperate for flickers of hope.

The council’s CEO Roger Baxter said De Ruyter had a good handle on the crisis he was hired to resolve after former CEO Phakamani Hadebe’s resignation last year.

Baxter said they were also engaging the power utility on how the miners could deal with the constraints state-owned entity’s faced such as getting coal off the road onto rail, which would improve the quality of the mineral.

EWN