War, said the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, does not determine who is right, but who is left.

As more details begin to unfold in the environmental battle between the mining company Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) and environmental groups trying to ward off their efforts, the question now is “who will be left?” For years the fight has been raging, and during the last six months victory calls have been heard from both camps.

In particular, environmental groups triumphed when CoAL’s share prices plummeted at the beginning of the year. This was, however, not the only stumbling block that CoAL faced. In February, their Vele colliery was flooded, and at the end of May their CEO, Mr Johan Wallington, left the company.

This, and the fact that CoAL announced that they were going to halt mining activities at their Vele colliery and “retrench hundreds of workers” made supporters of the environmental groups believe that CoAL was going to close shop.

During this time, CoAL also admitted to a $148-million loss in the 12 months which ended on June 2013. There were even rumours that CoAL could not afford the salaries of their senior executive employees for three consecutive months. 

A prominent group, leading the anti-CoAL fight, is the SOLVe (Save Our Beautiful Limpopo Valley) group that sparks debate via their Facebook site. This group is also part of the new umbrella organisation that was founded to form a united forum of stakeholders affected by the activities of CoAL. The general feeling on their page was that CoAL’s new CEO, Mr David Brown, would not be able to turn things around.

Following CoAL’s announcement on 30 August about their board’s approval of R220 million to expand Vele, CoAL was approached for comment regarding the employees that were retrenched and their financial situation.

On Tuesday, Ms Jane Kamau from Russel & Associates, CoAL’s appointed public relations managers, responded. According to her, CoAL only laid off 10 permanent staff members at Vele. “… some of whom were from the local area,” said Kamau in an email. She was unable to give an exact indication of how many employees were from the region.

Further comment provided by Kamau gave emphasis to Brown’s prospects that CoAL could be debt free by year-end.

Apart from the new cash influx, CoAL’s board size has been reduced from 12 directors to seven, their headcount by 30% and their cash burn has been reduced from R240-million a year to R40-million a year. Kamau said the reduction in the number of directors has resulted in a saving of R30 million per year. She denied rumours that executive employees had not been paid.

Brown said that the approved R220 million would be used to expand the second phase of Vele. According to Kamau, this will include both construction and ramp-up of the colliery. “Mining activities are currently taking place on site at Vele until the end of September. Thereafter, there will be a downscaling of activities in preparation for the construction and ramp-up phase,” said Kamau.

Vele will enter a construction phase from October and begin producing 1.3-million tons of saleable semi-soft coking coal, plus sized and unsized thermal coal, at the end of 2015.

In the meantime, since this announcement, SOLVe and other environmental groups have said that they would not back down, and continue to fight CoAL. Mr Wally Schultz, who represents SOLVe, described CoAL’s actions as a public relations spin.

“CoAL has ceased all operation in our valley, apparently to ‘re-group’. Well, I ask you to read between the lines of their PR-spin. How does a company, clearly in a financial crisis, close its one and only asset that is producing any cash flow?” said Schultz.

“We are no longer just another Facebook-group … we are power players on the battlefield, making a real difference,” Schultz added. He also said that his group was planning a massive protest march which “will make a few people sit up and pay attention”.