Transnet Freight Rail carried 167.9Mt of freight in FY2025/26, up 4.9%, as coal exports rose to 58.5Mt and iron ore to 52.8Mt, but the operator says it must clear 180Mt to meet demand.
African Rainbow Minerals' iron ore division booked a 41% drop in headline earnings for the year to June 2026, hit by weak prices and the cost of shutting Beeshoek, even as group profit recovered to nearly R4bn.
Kumba Iron Ore will supply iron ore to steel mills in the China Mineral Resources Group network from April 2026 to March 2027, under a contract Bloomberg estimates could cover 8 to 10 million tonnes.
South African mining production fell 4% year-on-year in June 2026, Stats SA data published on 13 August showed, worse than the 3.3% decline analysts had forecast.
Kumba Iron Ore kept its full-year production and sales targets intact despite a 41% drop in interim headline earnings, record Northern Cape rainfall, a stronger rand and sharply higher freight costs.
Australia's Sundance Resources has won an International Chamber of Commerce arbitration against Cameroon worth about $616m in damages, interest and costs over the Mbalam iron ore deposit.
Kumba Iron Ore has agreed to buy power from a 63MW solar plant that Envusa Energy will build on a waste rock dump at Sishen, with first electricity expected in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Kumba Iron Ore plans a 63MW on-site solar plant at its Sishen mine, developed by Envusa Energy, expected to start operating in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Kumba Iron Ore forecast on 21 July 2026 that headline earnings per share would fall 39-43% in the first half, hit by an 11% rand appreciation against the dollar.
Iron ore prices in China stood at $109.43 a tonne in June 2026, with record port stockpiles and weak construction demand offsetting stronger manufacturing steel use.
Iron ore exports from Guinea's Simandou project reached 2.2 million tonnes in May, up from a record 1.3 million tonnes in April, suggesting bottlenecks at the Morébaya port are starting to ease.
Genmin says a Middle Eastern consortium, a Shanghai-listed company, a commodity trader and a mining fund have made non-binding proposals to finance its $200m Baniaka iron ore project in south-eastern Gabon.
Envusa Energy's 240MW Mooi Plaats solar plant has begun commercial operation, supplying wheeled renewable power to Anglo American-linked miners Kumba Iron Ore, De Beers and Valterra Platinum.
China Baowu Steel Group completed an increase of its stake in the operator of Simandou's Blocks 1 and 2 to 51% on 30 January 2026, taking formal control weeks after the first iron ore shipments left Guinea for China.
The Simandou project in Guinea shipped its first iron ore cargo in December 2025, opening one of the world's largest untapped iron ore deposits after more than 20 years of delays.
Assmang has permanently closed its Beeshoek iron ore mine near Postmasburg and begun retrenching 622 employees, after ArcelorMittal South Africa ended the offtake agreement that kept the mine viable.
RMB Morgan Stanley has warned that South African iron ore exporters could lose some of the pricing premium that has cushioned them, as freight costs rise and Chinese steelmakers favour pellets over lumpy ore.
