iSince this story was published, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) approved a concessionary electricity tariff of 62c/kWh for Samancor Chrome’s smelters. The story was first published on LinkedIn on 26 May 2026, where you can read the original post and comments. This work is AI-assisted—read about how I work.
The Steelpoort valley sits at around 900 metres, thornveld and ridges of ultramafic rock, the Drakensberg escarpment to the east. Drive through Burgersfort on the R37 and the valley opens below you. The chrome trucks on every road are Samancor’s. So is the smelter on the R555, two kilometres south of Steelpoort town.
You’ve probably never heard of the company. That’s not an accident.
Samancor Chrome is the world’s largest integrated ferrochrome producer. Unlisted. More than 1.8 billion tonnes of chrome ore in the Bushveld Complex — over a century at current mining rates. Six smelting plants across the eastern limb. Taken private by Billiton and Anglo American in December 1998.
In 2005, BHP Billiton and Anglo American sold it to Kermas Group, a vehicle created for the transaction, for US$469 million. What followed was fourteen years of Kazakhstani investor groups, Mauritius holding structures, and Cayman Islands entities. In 2022, Sinosteel acquired control. In 2023, China Baowu absorbed Sinosteel. The world’s largest steelmaker, wholly owned by China’s central government, now controls the world’s largest ferrochrome operation. It is not a secret. It is simply not discussed.
The Ndizani Workers’ Trust holds 5.6%, structured to deliver dividends to the workforce. AMCU’s 2019 application alleged over US$100 million diverted from the Trust — the first time a South African union used company law to force a private company to open its books. Litigation continues.
Electricity is the existential cost.
South Africa’s proposed tariff relief for ferrochrome producers is still awaiting final NERSA confirmation. Long-term solar PPAs now price at 40 to 50c/kWh. Across six smelting plants, that gap is hundreds of millions of rands a year. Samancor and CGN Africa Energy — Chinese, state-backed — have signed a 100 MW solar PPA at Tubatse, co-financed by the China-Africa Development Fund. The Chinese state is not waiting for NERSA. It is building the energy stack now.
CGN’s solar plant solves Samancor’s cost. The tariff it sidesteps is the same grid that built this industry — when South Africa had some of the cheapest electricity in the world, and the mines that ran on it employed hundreds of thousands of people.
That era ended. Nobody has replaced what that time made possible for industry in South Africa.
Not for the mines. Not for the Bapedi and Ndzundza Ndebele who were in this valley before any of it arrived.