Critical Update on the Proposed MMSEZ-Kinetic Resources Ferrochrome Smelter—Our Formal Objections Submitted
On Thursday, 14 August 2025, Living Limpopo, the Wits University Centre for Applied Legal Studies and The Herd Nature Reserve, supported by All Rise Attorneys for Environmental and Climate Justice, submitted formal comments and objections on the draft Environmental Impact Assessment Report for the planned ferrochrome/ferroalloys smelter in the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ)
Image of a ‘typical’ ferrochrome smelter provided in the Scoping Report for the MMSEZ Kinetic Ferrochrome Smelter Project; Public Meeting, 13 September 2024
The road to Environmental Authorisation: In September 2024, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process for several industrial projects at the MMSEZ Energy-Metallurgical Zone in Limpopo Province was launched. Despite heavy criticism, the Scoping Report for the ferrochrome smelter was approved, and in June 2025, the Draft EIA Report (EIAR) was released for public comment. You can read the background here (Living Limpopo campaign launched 13 September 2024 calling for public registration) and here (Living Limpopo press release 03 November 2024).
Comments on the Environmental Impact Assessment Despite being denied proper advance notice and afforded an unreasonably short period to review a vast collection of highly technical documents, All Rise Attorneys submitted a rigorous, well-supported objection to the ferrochrome smelter project at the MMSEZ Energy-Metallurgical Zone on behalf of Living Limpopo, CALS and The Herd Reserve. This preserves our right to challenge every step of the process going forward.
Fatally flawed impact assessment and net negative impact
Our submission details deep technical and legal flaws in the dEIAR spanning:
Climate impact
Air quality and human health (including the serious risk of carcinogenic exposures)
Water security (highlighting severe risks to the sole aquifer)
Energy intensity and feasibility
Biodiversity loss in a UNESCO-designated Vhembe Biosphere Reserve
Soil and land capability
Socio-economic impacts (including limited job creation and declared unfair advantages for foreign interests in dumping pollution and power consumption)
Cumulative environmental impacts
Methodological weaknesses and the inadequate consideration of alternatives
Although the dEIAR severely understates the environmental impacts - by confining the impact assessment to 125,000 kt/a, when the proposed smelter will produce 1 million tons of ferroalloys within 5 years, a catastrophic technical error and EIA defect* - it nonetheless confirms the project would bring serious and widespread harm, including:
Severe water stress and pollution risk
Significant air quality degradation and human health threats
Irreversible biodiversity loss
High carbon intensity and greenhouse gas emissions
Economic feasibility (‘stranded asset’) concerns tied to unreliable power supply and weak market justification
Meagre job creation benefits (241 direct employment opportunities)
Socio-economic calculus skewed in favour of Chinese controlling interests, while South Africa bears the costs (The ‘advantages’ for China identified in the feasibility study, conducted by a Chinese engineering firm, is the transfer China's excess steel capacity and the reduction of China's high energy-consuming [primary industry] pollution to South Africa).
Conflicts of Interest and Gross Procedural Unfairness
The application comes from Kinetic Resources and its subsidiary Kinetic Mining (Pty) Ltd—the same Chinese-controlled parent company advancing the nearby MC Mining Makhado Colliery without valid environmental authorisation.
Serious concerns remain about the independence of the approvals process:
The “competent authority” is the Limpopo Province Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET)—which ultimately oversees, and stands to benefit from, the development of the MMSEZ through its own agencies.
On 19 May, All Rise formally requested that the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment revoke LEDET’s authority in this matter due to this conflict. As of now, no such action has been taken and the process remains in the hands of a conflicted department.
Throughout the EIA, procedural fairness has been severely compromised:
Our December 2024 Scoping Report comments were ignored; we received no notification of its approval.
Interested and affected parties (I&APs) received no direct notice of the dEIAR’s release. Most only learned of it by chance via a Limpopo Mirror newspaper notice.
Document access was inadequate.
Timeframe extension requests—crucial due to notification failures—were outright denied.
The public participation process has been little more than a formality: at the 17 July Makhado public meeting, substantive questions raised by the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve and Living Limpopo went unanswered.
Timeline of Key Events
13 Sep 2024: EIA process announced - Notice published in Limpopo Mirror; public meeting held; campaign launched by Living Limpopo for public registration; Scoping Report released
9 Dec 2024: Initial Scoping Report comments and objections submitted by All Rise Attorneys on behalf of Living Limpopo and CALS
Dec 2024–May 2025: No response to comments received; no notice of Scoping Report decision received; all queries submitted by All Rise on Scoping Report approval decision ignored; other I&APs, incl. Centre for Environmental Rights confirm same
19 May 2025: Letter served on the Minister of Environment concerning jurisdictional conflict
27 Jun 2025: dEIAR release notice published in Limpopo Mirror - no notice of dEIAr release given to registered I&APs
14 Jul 2025: dEIAR received only on request
16–17 Jul 2025: Public meetings held—substantive and procedural concerns ignored
14 Aug 2025: Formal comment and objections i.r.o dEIAr submitted by All Rise on behalf of Living Limpopo and CALS
Next Steps—Your Involvement Needed
We continue to pursue every avenue to ensure the law is upheld:
We invite you to review the documents and flag further procedural defects or environmental and community impacts for possible supplementary submissions.
A major, in-depth health impact analysis covering the cumulative MMSEZ mining/smelter complex is nearing completion—expected to shift the debate on the project’s true economic and social costs.
We sincerely thank everyone contributing to this collective effort. Stay tuned for further updates—our rights, our environment, and our communities are all at stake.
Our comments can be accessed here
For those wanting to access the dEIAR or our formal comments, visit:
www.gudaniconsulting.co.za/public/docs
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*See comments excerpt: Critical Technical and Financial Inconsistencies in Production Capacity
9. A catastrophic and irreconcilable inconsistency exists between the Feasibility Study, the dEIAR, and the socio‐economic modelling relied upon to promote the Musina‐Makhado SEZ ferrochrome smelter. The Feasibility Study—the only detailed technical and engineering basis for the project—designs a facility producing 125,000 tpa from two 33 MVA furnaces, with corresponding power demand (~55 MW) and water requirements (~1,456 m3/h, of which just 17 m3/h is make‐up).
10. The dEIAR, however, openly describes and applies for authorisation of a phased ramp‐up to eight units producing 1 million tpa within five years—an eight‐fold increase in throughput, power and water demand—yet, in its impact assessment sections, models and quantifies impacts almost entirely for the 125,000 tpa case, thereby excluding the environmental risks of the full build‐out from formal assessment.
11. Compounding this, the Socio‐Economic Impact Assessment (Appendix 8H) cites benefits aligned not even to the 1 Mtpa scenario, but to the full MMSEZ build, including a ferrochrome capacity of around 3 Mtpa, and uses these inflated outputs to overstate job creation, GDP contribution, and revenue streams.
12. This selective scaling—downplaying feasibility considerations and environmental impacts of the operation while exaggerating economic benefits—represents a deliberate misalignment of core project parameters between engineering design, environmental evaluation, and economic justification. It fatally undermines the integrity and credibility of the assessment process, pointing to manipulation of inputs to minimise apparent environmental harm while maximising projected socio‐economic gains.
