JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Amid the high quality of the lump ore of South Africa’s Kumba Iron Ore helping global steelmakers to decarbonise, the Anglo American group company is itself embarking on two initiatives in the Northern Cape to make itself greener.

Exciting projects taking place at the operation include solar PV atop a rehabilitated waste rock dump at its Sishen iron-ore mine as well as likely renewable power wheeling at its Kolomela iron-ore operation, which will also help to realise the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company’s rehabilitation objectives.

A wheeling agreement has been entered into with Anglo’s joint venture partner Envusa, as well as EDF Renewables, a French company.

“So, there's a lot that's taking place internally,” Kumba CEO Mpumi Zikalala said in response to this Mining Weekly question, which was put during a media roundtable on Thursday, which followed a solid set of 2025 Kumba financial results:

Mining Weekly: When you painted a picture of iron-ore going forward, you made reference to iron-ore's role in the global shift to clean technology. Mining Weekly would be very grateful if you please elaborate on the expected role that iron-ore will play in that global shift to clean technology and, secondly, what is Kumba doing itself to become greener?

Regarding iron-ore’s role in the global clean tech shift, Kumba marketing and seaborne logistics head Timo Smit responded: “Steel is needed for just about everything. If you want to have cleaner cars, if you want renewable energy, windmills, they need a steel base. They're made of steel. So many things are made of steel. We often focus entirely on copper, on lithium, and on those kinds of commodities, but iron-ore for green steel is just as important.”

Kumba ore has a relatively high iron (Fe) content of about 64%.

“I would argue our role as Kumba is to help steel mills decarbonise by giving them better quality iron-ore that helps them reduce their emissions in their steelmaking process.

“We've talked about this in the past. Fe represents about a 2.4% reduction in carbon emissions in the blast furnace. Last year our average Fe content across our portfolio was exactly 64.0%. That's well ahead of our competitors. Ours is a couple percentage points above, so using our ore helps steel mills decarbonise.

“Secondly, using lump helps you avoid the emissions from the sintering process, from the pelletising process. You do pay a little bit of a price for that in the blast furnace itself, but on a net basis, you can save about 200 kg of CO₂ by using lump.

“That's a meaningful reduction, and that's a contribution that we can make as a supplier of high-grade ore, mostly of lump, to help steel mills to decarbonise,” Smit pointed out.

Zikalala then provided insight into making the Kumba business more environment friendly as part of the company’s goal to reduce its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 30% by 2030, citing the solar on the waste rock dump as well as the wheeling solution.

More on this is expected to arise in Anglo’s results presentation tomorrow, February 20.

Two-thirds of Kumba’s product consisting of lump iron-ore translates into the company being able to earn the full lump premium on two-thirds of its overall volume. This puts the company in the advantageous position of being able to select customers that value lump in their furnaces and are prepared to pay a premium.

With the company’s ultrahigh dense media separation project coming online, Kumba will have even more premium products in its portfolio.

“Our average quality is going to go up, ever so slightly also, and that will help us earn a slightly better premium going forward, on the back of the quality of our product,” Smit explained to Mining Weekly.