On 1 July, South Africa’s last remaining manganese smelter, Transalloys, shut down its furnaces. As the announcement came, it was reported that if the company did not secure a substantial electricity tariff reduction from state-owned utility Eskom by the end of the month, it would cease all operations, putting 600 workers at risk of layoffs. Indirectly, about 7,000 people depend on those jobs, and a closure would mean eMalahleni, the municipality where the smelter is located, will most likely experience a severe economic downturn.
As of early August, no further details have yet emerged on Transalloys’ negotiations with Eskom. But its looming closure marks another setback in the country’s long industrial decline.
The first commercial manganese smelter in South Africa went into operation in April 1960, and by 1977 the country produced 75-80% of the metal traded globally, as well as half of the world’s electrolytic manganese, its high-purity form.
Globally, 90% of manganese ferroalloys – produced by smelting the metal ore with iron – are used in steelmaking, essential for adding strength and durability to virtually all steel products. South Africa has 70% of the world’s manganese resources. But the metal is not the only area where the country has a resource lock on key inputs for steel production.
South Africa also holds between 70-80% of global chromite reserves and once dominated production of ferrochrome, the processed alloy created from chromite and iron, of which 80% is used in the production of stainless steel. But currently, just 11 of the 66 ferrochrome smelters in the country are operational.
Despite South Africa’s considerable advantage in the minerals needed for steel production – with its manganese, chromite and iron ore reserves representing a steel ecosystem – ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) closed its Newcastle and Vereeniging steelworks in 2025, marking the end of over a century of long steel production in South Africa. A total of 3,500 people used to work at the plants; the two cities are now facing socio-economic collapse. These closures come off the back of AMSA’s 2020 shuttering of the Saldanha Bay steelworks.
South Africa should be a global price-setter for steel products given its virtual monopoly on chrome and manganese ore. And just not for conventional steel: as the global industry explores lower-carbon paths to produce “green” steel, these newer products still require these inputs.
The country has itself sought, and struggled, to pursue projects linked to cleaner steelmaking, while also being seen as a potential provider of inputs for global steel decarbonisation such as “green iron”. But exploiting any of these inputs and advantages means confronting similar challenges, after nearly two decades of spiralling deindustrialisation.
Premature deindustrialisation
Since 2008, South Africa’s manufacturing sector has experienced what researcher Andrés Fortunato calls a “structural break”, and hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost. Metals, metal products, machinery and equipment sectors continue to record losses: metals production alone lost 40,000 jobs between Q1 2024 and Q1 2025, a 15% decline in its workforce. The formal non-agricultural sector lost 80,000 jobs in Q1 2026.
These job losses, many of which are high-quality union jobs, come in the context of widespread unemployment and a declining economy. According to Statistics South Africa, the expanded unemployment rate – a figure that includes those who have stopped actively looking for work – is 43.7%, while the unemployment rate for 15 to 24 year-olds is a staggering 60.9%.
Since 59% of South Africa’s population is under the age of 35, these figures, plus the fact that the World Bank ranks it as the most unequal country in the world, suggest a likely considerable political instability for decades to come.
As jobs have disappeared, pressure on the state has increased. Currently, 26.5 million people receive social welfare grants. In 2010, the number was 14 million. Debt-to-GDP levels have risen from 23.6% in 2008-2009 to 77.4% for 2025-2026, and debt service is the second highest budget expenditure.
South Africa’s deindustrialisation exceeds global norms and is premature relative to typical development pathways. Manufacturing capacity is underutilised, and product diversity has declined significantly. The economy is losing complexity and becoming more dependent on raw material exports (for example, manganese ore and chromite) and services, an economic structure incapable of addressing the country’s deep social and economic problems.
In other words, the situation is dire and the need to halt and reverse deindustrialisation is acute.
Expensive power, uncertain rail, global prices
The underlying factors causing the closure of steelworks and manganese and ferrochrome smelters are high electricity, high rail fees and, some have argued, the privatisation of iron mines. For all the potential advantages that South Africa may have for greener steel and its inputs – including high renewable energy potential and high-grade iron ore at home – all of these underlying factors have and will prevent its production.
Eskom is in a utility death spiral. According to the Energy Intensive Users Group of Southern Africa, electricity prices rose from ZAR 0.199 per kilowatt-hour in 2008 to ZAR 1.65/kWh in 2024 (USD 0.012 to USD 0.10). Citing high global coal prices and the need for capital expenditure, Eskom applied to the energy regulator for a tariff increase and was granted one. From then on, a steady stream of tariff increases were granted, including in 2026. This sparked a fatal feedback loop: as prices rose, demand dropped and Eskom’s revenue decreased, which meant tariffs had to rise to maintain the utility’s viability. In turn, demand drops and revenue decreases, especially as high prices drive users to generate their own electricity, primarily via solar.
The result is that the electricity tariff set for manganese smelters is up to ZAR 2.06/kWh. In comparison, the cost of electricity for manganese smelters in Malaysia and China is between ZAR 0.50–0.73/kWh.
Rail freight costs have increased (in constant 2024 rands) from ZAR 214 per tonne in 2008 to ZAR 269 per tonne in 2024 (USD 13 to USD 16). At the same time, volumes have gone down, with general freight, excluding export coal and ore, recording an average annual decline of 9% between 2019 and 2024. Between the third and fourth quarter of 2023 alone, freight volumes on the rail corridor from iron mines in the Northern Cape to the port of Saldanha Bay declined by 19%, resulting in the iron miner Kumba Iron Ore cutting production by a quarter.
The last increase in input costs is due to the privatisation of iron mines in the 2000s. This led to iron ore tracking the global price instead of being set at a domestic price agreed between state and producers. The export parity pricing meant AMSA had to pay more for iron ore, a significant factor in its decision to close its steelworks.
What went wrong at Saldanha?
Given the urgent need to mitigate carbon emissions, the greening of heavy industry is not optional but a necessity.
Four years ago, South Africa attempted to do this. AMSA and petrochemical company Sasol jointly agreed to look into reviving and developing the Saldanha steelworks, located 140km north of Cape Town, into a green steel plant that would use renewable energy and, eventually, green hydrogen as a feedstock. AMSA had mothballed the former plant in 2020, but the steel mill remained advantageously placed to convert to greener iron and steelmaking: there is a dedicated rail line from quality iron ore mines, easy access to export facilities and plenty of renewable energy potential in the area. Moreover, Saldanha’s plant already uses Midrex, a gas-based technology for the direct reduction of iron, but one that is amenable to conversion to green hydrogen.
The green steel Saldanha project was touted in plan after plan as a catalyst for the green hydrogen economy. Yet in January 2025, both Sasol and AMSA said they would no longer be going forward with it. The economics did not work out largely because of the wider problems causing the closure of long steel, and of ferrochrome and manganese smelters.
In theory, greening the Saldanha steelworks remains viable. The port, rail, raw materials and skills base all exist. What is required is not just fixing the existing energy and transport problems, but adopting a new and more forceful approach to the steel ecosystem.
Copying China?
The underlying causes of the deindustrialisation, both generally and specific to the steel ecosystem, need to be addressed as the first step. Without functioning rail and cheap enough electricity, heavy industry can’t be saved, and the process of returning to raw minerals export dependency will intensify. For example, when a manganese smelter reaches cold shutdown – as looks set to happen at Transalloys now its own July deadline has passed – it is extremely difficult to restart.
Furthermore, critical skills within the steel ecosystem are being lost with every closure of a steelworks or smelter. These skills are not easy to replace.
One positive sign is that the government is in the process of providing the remaining ferrochrome smelters with cheaper electricity – a reduction to ZAR 0.62/kWh (USD 0.04). To support revival, this would have to be extended across the steel ecosystem.
For green steelmaking specifically, there also has to be a market at large enough volumes. This would require long-term contracts with overseas buyers. But demand signals and committed buyers for these currently premium steel products remain lacking across global markets, a condition facing green steel producers internationally.
Where South Africa has a huge advantage is its reserves of manganese and chromite, one that is being significantly underutilised. China’s approach to rare earth minerals shows how control of global supply can lead to beneficiation on a massive and exclusive scale. South Africa, as it did in the past, should use its control of manganese and chromite to determine both the export and domestic price of the relevant alloys and, in the process, have a substantial say in the global price of steel – green or otherwise.
If combined with removing the export-parity pricing of iron ore and a rapid expansion of low-cost renewable energy, South Africa could move to a situation where it can, like China does with the rare earth minerals value chain, determine some of the input costs for steelmaking. By determining input costs and thus making its steel production below global and import pricing, South Africa has the opportunity to reverse its deindustrialisation and create jobs. By controlling the resources required and with the appropriate investments, South Africa might be able to become the Saudi Arabia of steel.
