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Cape Town - Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on Monday urged the country's major coal miners to speed up their efforts to improve black economic empowerment in the industry, particularly by identifying smaller coal operations that could be turned over to new entrants.
Addressing delegates at the CoalTrans 2004 conference in Cape Town on Monday, Mlambo-Ngcuka said that the government would be "working intensively" to encourage the firms to come forward this year on BEE issues.
"Some of our larger companies may make available their smaller coal deposits for junior miners, under the new Minerals & Petroleum Development Act," she said.
"This will greatly help a company meet its empowerment scorecard requirements," she added.
Key challenges facing South Africa's coal industry included the need to take "active steps" to address the issue of global warming, she said.
In particular, this meant speeding up the pace of development of clean coal technologies to decrease emissions.
"The industry should make a visible, active contribution to the issue of global warming, and take corrective steps now rather than having to respond to government regulations," she added.
Another challenge faced by the industry was the current Extractive Industries Review by the World Bank, which recommends the replacement of coal fired power stations by gas-powered stations.
Mlambo-Ngcuka said the South African government would rather see investment in clean coal technologies than having to adopt this recommendation.
South Africa relies on coal-fired power stations to generate more than 90% of its electricity requirements.
The country is now the fourth largest exporter of coal, behind Australia, Indonesia and China.
South Africa faces a rapidly diminishing coal resource base and the government estimates that 40 years from now only 20% of its coal reserves will remain.