S32 is about to get a real flogging in South Africa. The last...

S32 is about to get a real flogging in South Africa. The last quarter was only marginally affected by Eskom power load shedding, this quarter now is where the real problems are starting. Load shedding is a daily occurrence.  
What is more dire is the fact that Nersa and Eskom are now in Court as of yesterday fighting to up the power tariffs considerably.

"Eskom has asked the High Court for an order allowing it to impose a tariff increase of 16.6% from April 2020 and 16.7% from April 2021, according to an affidavit seen by Reuters."

This will be the final death blow for manganese smelters in South Africa and also for aluminium smelting.
The s32 financials next month will show how the manganese smelters are performing, and they're only going to get worse.

Look at whats happening with the worlds largest manganese smelter in the Ukraine, the power price has gone up, now they're going broke.
Power costs can range from 25% to 50% of production costs, so its a very important input cost.
The policies of the UN and EU in Europe are taking a huge toll on countries that previously had cheap power, forcing them to scrap nuclear and thermal power plants to use renewable energy.
Ferroalloy plants in the Ukraine are now facing the same problem of expensive power brought about by these policies.

Electric shock: Ukraine is on the verge of blackout

Energy-intensive ferroalloy enterprises (mainly producing alloys for deoxidation and alloying of steel) were among the first to suffer. The Kiev edition of Delovaya Stolitsa writes that for the largest metallurgical plant ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, over the past month alone, electricity has risen in price by 20 percent. And Nikopol and Zaporizhzhya plants lost 122 and 70 million hryvnia, respectively.

Читать далее: https://lt.sputniknews.ru/economy/2...shok-Ukraina-okazalas-na-poroge-blekauta.html

China is also having its problems with high power costs, but they're still considerably cheaper than S32 in South Africa.