90% of the carbon tax bill paid by eight firms

Mergence estimates the total carbon tax bill of listed companies from 2015 could top R3,14bn a year.

Mergence estimated the potential carbon tax bill across a sample of 70 of the top 100 JSE companies that disclosed data to the Carbon Disclosure Project over the past four years.

The total tax revenue will be a lot bigger as Mergence's research excludes power utility Eskom, which (based on rough calculations on 2012 emissions data) would probably cough up between R8,7bn and R11,6bn a year.

Among the JSE companies, oil and gas giant Sasol will, on an absolute basis, potentially pay the highest bill of about R3bn a year.

Other major contributors to the carbon tax bill would be steel maker ArcelorMittal SA, cement producer PPC, mining companies Anglo American and BHP Billiton and paper producers Sappi and Mondi.

Mergence also compared the projected tax with consensus forecast pretax profits to determine which companies would experience the largest impact of the carbon tax charge on their margins. This analysis showed four companies - ArcelorMittal SA, PPC, Sasol and Sappi - were at risk of facing a damaging impact of more than 2% of pretax profits.

Carbon tax could represent as much as 40% of Arcelor's pretax profits, while PPC could see an it reducing profits by about 12%, Sasol 7,7% and Sappi 4,5%. Perhaps surprisingly, Mergence estimates that shipping group Grindrod could see an see 1,5% wiped from its profits and food conglomerate Tongaat Hulett would probably lose about 1%.

Source: Financial Mail via I-Net Bridge