Greenside Colliery. Credit: Thungela Resources <\/p>\n
Thungela Resources\u2019\u00a0TGAJ.J\u00a0Ensham thermal coal mine anchors the company\u2019s growth prospects away from South Africa, CEO Moses Madondo said on Monday, after the Australian operation helped the company double its half-year profit.<\/p>\n
Thungela\u2019s headline earnings per share rose to 4.80 rand ($0.2972) in the six months to June 30, up from 1.92 rand during the same period last year.<\/p>\n
The miner\u2019s income was driven by higher output, firmer thermal coal prices and increased export sales as the Middle East conflict disrupted energy markets.<\/p>\n
In South Africa and Australia, where Thungela operates mines, benchmark coal prices increased by 15% and 25%, respectively, boosting revenue to 15.2 billion rand for the period from 14.8 billion rand previously.<\/p>\n
Thungela acquired the Australian mine in 2023 to diversify away from South Africa, where logistics bottlenecks have forced bulk mineral exporters to curtail output.<\/p>\n
Production at Ensham rose 38% to 2.2 million metric tons in the first half, on the back of improved management of mining conditions following geological challenges which affected output in the first half of 2025.<\/p>\n
Thungela was now better placed to deal with geological challenges at Ensham and looking for ways to expand output beyond current levels around 4 million tons annually, Madondo told Reuters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt offers a lot of opportunity for growth for us. We are looking at a number of the areas, looking for opportunities for growth there,\u201d Madondo said, adding that Thungela was currently conducting studies on potential expansion.<\/p>\n
Thungela\u2019s export sales increased 12% to 9.5 million metric tons, underpinned by improved freight rail logistics in South Africa and strong production at Ensham.<\/p>\n
The company expects to produce between 13 million and 13.6 million tons for the export market in 2026.<\/p>\n
Thungela said it would pay an interim dividend of 5.50 rand per share, up from 2 rand per share previously.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nelson Banya and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Jacqueline Wong)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenside Colliery. Credit: Thungela Resources Thungela Resources\u2019\u00a0TGAJ.J\u00a0Ensham thermal coal mine anchors the company\u2019s growth prospects away from South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-858781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}