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On-The-Air (10/06/2016)

safm10june2016

10th June 2016

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: New joint action is under way to arrest the devastating decline of the South African mining industry.

Creamer: This was outlaid in some detail yesterday at the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM). It was spelt out by the Phakisa strategist Edwin Ritchken just how we are going to go about rebuilding this mining industry, which has been devastated. Now, 120 people sat in the background from a multitude of departments, mining companies, labour unions and NGO’s and they have hammered out a new engine for the South African mining industry.

What they want to do it put mining at the centre of a big supply chain, so that all parts of that supply chain can be feeding off mining and we can have that linkage that is so important for our industrialisation. They are expanding industrialisation beyond manufacture and pushing it right down into rural areas to include agriculture, which they say is a highly technical business that we can uplift with mining. Mining needs to be uplifted technologically.

They lamented this huge loss which came about when the Chamber of Mines Research Organization (Comro) was handed over to government, the CSIR, and very bad funded. They want to build from the foundation that has been laid, because a lot of the super structures have been smashed down. We saw companies go to London to list and have been misled by a lot of what they called 20-something-year-old fund managers who have pulled them by the nose.

We have seen some very bad investments and leveraging off the balance sheet, putting up debt like what would never have been tolerated in the past. They are saying let’s get back and make sure that we get mining as a centrepiece of a broad supply chain and get all those linkages going. At CSIR in Johannesburg they are going to allow local manufacturers to come in and research and develop their equipment and uplift the whole technological base of mining so that we can start again.

Kamwendo: Great news for platinum is that fuel cell development is bursting out all over the country.

Creamer: It shows you, the b-word, beneficiation, you don’t have to force it on mining companies if there is a business case. That is a point raised yesterday at the SAIMM to make sure that when you beneficiate there is a business case. They made the point of fuel cells, look how mining companies have invested into those.

You haven’t had to pull Impala Platinum along and say you will do this. They have done it themselves. You haven’t had to pull Anglo American Platinum along and say you will do this, they have invested in it. You see now we are having the situation where Impala is even considering that the utility vehicles that go underground at shaft 14 in Rustenburg could now be fuel cell powered, because they have got that experience and skills that they have built up in Springs.

We saw them put the fuel cells behind forklift trucks and the drivers and everyone was fascinated by this. They didn’t have the battery wait for the recharging and they were so silent and worked so well. Now, they are saying take it a step further. At the same time we know that there is an underpin from government. We see the University of Western Cape hosting Hydrogen South Africa, which this week clinched a deal with the Dutch to make sure that they can make parts for the fuel cell in South Africa.

Those components can be fed in to this big Dutch company which is making these fuel cells there, what they call PEM fuel cell. Why fuel cells? Because it pulls the demand for platinum, platinum demand goes up. We can see that out at Springs, Impala Platinum are showing you how you can use platinum with fuel cells to produce your own electricity plus you can use natural gas. They are showing you everything that is available. At the same time the Deputy Minerals Minister Godfrey Oliphant is saying, let’s expedite this.

Kamwendo: Petrochemicals giant Sasol is investing R20-billion in neighbouring Mozambique to find more natural gas.

Creamer: They have begun drilling 12 more wells in Mozambique. They have approved a budget of R20-billion. This comes against the background of having already spent a lot of money there. They have done pretty well at the Pande and Temane all onshore, nothing offshore.

Wanting to get more gas down also to help the Mozambique economy, signed an agreement with the government there to also build power stations. They are saying to South Africa, Mozambique gas is already being used to make fuel and chemicals, let’s also do more with the Mozambique gas  to generate power in South Africa.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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