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.
