Billionaire Patrice Motsepe's Kropz to cut staff at $160m phosphate mine

Kropz Plc, the phosphate producer about 90 per cent owned by South African mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Capital, will cut its own employees and allow its operating and maintenance agreement with contractors at its Elandsfontein mine to lapse when it expires in November.

The operation, roughly 98km north of Cape Town beside the West Coast National Park, employs about 540 people including contractors. Kropz will now concentrate on producing nanophos, a soft rock that releases phosphate more gradually, for the South African market, while selling down its stockpiles of phosphate rock.

"Kropz will continue maintaining the majority of the unused plant in a care and maintenance state that will ensure a quick return to phosrock production when market conditions become more favourable," chief operating officer Mark Maynard said in response to queries.

The company said on 7 September it would restructure the operation after roughly $160 million of investment, citing fertiliser market conditions worsened by war between the United States and Iran. Contractor Trollope Mining Group told staff in a 2 September letter that its contract would be drastically reduced if not terminated entirely at the end of November, putting 238 jobs at risk. Today's announcement extends the cuts to Kropz's own payroll.

Motsepe first invested in Kropz in 2018 and built near-total control through African Rainbow Capital across a series of bailouts. The mine has never delivered. Kropz acquired the Elandsfontein site in 2010 and has missed production targets repeatedly, hampered by technical problems with the ore body and by sustained legal opposition.

The most damaging setback came in 2025, when South Africa's national parks authority barred Kropz from accessing phosphate reserves lying inside the protected conservation area next to the mine, reserves central to the project's economics.