All South African mining stakeholders needs to come together to develop a coherent, comprehensive strategy for the country’s commodities, and then use this to present a united national front to secure funding and leverage opportunities for demand for minerals and metals of the future.

This was outlined by speakers during the second day of the Joburg Indaba, which was held this week.

CRU Consulting principal consultant Ionut Lazar said that, in the long term, elements such as the just energy transition would favour some commodities over others.

He highlighted that critical minerals were especially important, particularly those required to enable the energy transition.

Lazar emphasised that there was a need to understand the landscape for these commodities, and the possible bottlenecks that could emerge.

He highlighted the need to map out the energy transition value chains, that is, solar, wind and nuclear energy, that would inform the demand for commodities.

Sibanye-Stillwater Southern Africa chief regional officer Richard Stewart said the energy transition in South Africa could be broken into three different elements.

Firstly, generation, which is largely trending towards renewable energy and away from coal-fired generation.

Secondly, transmission, with this largely understood given that the technology will not change significantly here, Stewart explained.

However, he pointed out that there would be higher demand here, given that renewable energy was in different locations than where the existing coal-fired power station fleet was located.

Thirdly, storage would be needed, as renewable energy was not baseload and was inconsistent, therefore, batteries were a critical element.

Stewart therefore emphasised the need to understand each of these three areas, and the impact they would have on commodities moving forward, with many to grow considerably off a very low base. 

He added that other geopolitical trends provided opportunities; for example, South Africa can leverage its status as the world’s third largest producer of vanadium and create a regional value for this, given that Russia and China, the other two biggest producers, have political drawbacks for some countries.

He said that, what must be recognised, was that the energy transition was so considerable that it could not be done merely at country level, and required global cooperation.

However, on a local level, he said all stakeholders had to come together and recognise the role they played in the country’s strategy.

He said that business must be transparent well beyond compliance, while government should put in place and implement enabling legislation.

Stewart emphasised that for South Africa to remain competitive, all stakeholders must come together in terms of solving logistical, safety and electricity issues. He also called for constructive engagements with organised labour and communities.

Stewart said that there was considerable capital appetite to invest in the energy transition.

He said that to secure this, the country must collaborate to fix issues as alluded to above, and then clarify its internal value proposition to international investors.