TCSA sells its South African Coal Asset to Exxaro Resources for $472 mln

JOHANNESBURG (Scrap Monster): Exxaro Resources during Monday announced that they had acquired the South African coal assets of France’s Total for about $472 million. The company said that the acquisition would add up their output and export capacity.

Exxaro has declared earlier this year that they were planning to buy Total Coal South Africa (TCSA). Exxaro is renowned as the second largest coking coal producer and it also has shares in iron ore and other base metals.

Sipho Nkosi, Chief Executive of Exxaro said that the followed the acquisition, the company’s scale of coal portfolio has increased by about 12 pct. At present, the company has seven coking coal mines with a total capacity of about 40 million tonnes per annum. The company’s corporate debt facilities will finance the deal.

The major domestic customer of the company is South African power utility Eskom. It also delivers coal for overseas market. This acquisition deal will provide extra capacity allocation at South Africa's Richards Bay Coal Terminal, which the largest export coal terminal in the world.

Once the acquisition gets finished, the capacity allocation of the company at the terminal will increase to 8 million tonnes. TCSA decided to sell off its assets in order to focus on the core business activities. TCSA is known s the fifth largest coal manufacturer in South Africa.