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# Coal is paying off again for Thungela
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/coal-is-paying-off-again-for-thungela/
- Published: 2026-08-12T02:45:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-12T02:44:59.000Z
- Description: The miner expects its half-year profit to more than double — helped by firmer coal prices, a steadier Transnet, and a one-off asset sale.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News

Coal has been out of fashion for years, but it is quietly minting money again for Thungela Resources. The producer told the market on 7 August that its core earnings — the headline earnings per share figure JSE-listed companies must report — should land between R4.60 and R4.95 for the six months to June. That is an increase of 140% to 158% on a year earlier, comfortably more than double the R1.92 it reported a year ago. In rand terms, headline earnings should come in between R580-million and R630-million.

Two things did most of the lifting. The first is price: the benchmark coal price at Richards Bay averaged about $104.25 a tonne so far this year, well up from $89.53 for all of 2025 and $91.78 in the first half of last year. The second is rail. Transnet Freight Rail, long the bottleneck for South African coal exporters, improved to an annualised run rate of about 60.8-million tonnes, and Thungela used spare capacity left by other miners to push more coal to port. Export sales, including about 700,000 tonnes of third-party coal, were expected to reach roughly 7.5-million tonnes in the half, up from 6.6-million a year earlier.

## The number that flatters the picture

There is one figure that needs an asterisk. Basic earnings per share is set to jump far more — to between R10.75 and R11.10, up 457% to 475%. Total earnings attributable to shareholders are expected to land between R1.3-billion and R1.4-billion. But that basic-EPS leap is flattered by a roughly R1-billion non-cash profit Thungela booked on selling the Kleinkopje mining right at its Khwezela colliery. That one-off is stripped out of the headline earnings figure, which is why the two numbers are so far apart.

## What to watch

Management was careful to note that volatile global coal markets are still weighing on results, so this is a recovery with a caveat rather than a clean sweep. Thungela's shares actually closed down 1.55% at R96.48 on Friday, before the JSE shut for Monday's holiday. The full interim results land on 17 August, when investors will see how much of the rebound is already priced in — and whether firmer coal and a steadier Transnet can keep the run going.