Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita
Photo by: Duane Daws
In yet another surprise high-profile resignation, ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) CEO Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita has announced that she will be leaving the company on February 18, following a six-year stint.
Her resignation follows only days after Eskom CEO Brian Dames announced that he would be departing the organisation at the end of March.
AMSA chairperson Mpho Makwana, who coincidentally acted as executive chairperson of Eskom following the acrimonious departure of Jacob Maroga in late 2009 and ahead of the appointment of Dames in mid-2010, described Nyembezi-Heita’s contribution as “tremendous”, while wishing her success in the “next chapter of her career”.
He said the board would embark on a search for a successor, adding that “an announcement on the transitional period will be made in due course”.
Nyembezi-Heita described her tenure as challenging, but stressed that the management team had achieved significant advances in a number of areas.
“Our safety performance is now world-class and we have also taken huge strides towards meeting our environmental obligations. There is steady progress in our operational improvement programmes with pleasing results in places,” she said in a statement.
Nyembezi-Heita added that, as the market turned “we can expect a marked improvement in our financial performance, aided in no small measure by the recent settlement with Kumba”.
The settlement with Kumba was reached in mid-November, which is designed to resolving a long-running dispute over iron-ore supply from Kumba to AMSA. Effective from January 1, 2014, the deal regulates the sale of 6.25-million tons of iron-ore a year from Kumba’s Sishen and Thabazimbi mines to AMSA’s steel mills in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
The material, which will be supplied in line with agreed specifications, is to be supplied at a price derived using the cost of production at Sishen’s dense media separation plant, plus a 20% margin. A ceiling price equal to the Sishen export parity price at the mine gate has also been agreed. The pricing arrangement will endure for the life of the Sishen mine, which is currently estimated at more than 18 years.