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: The fast-growing mining company Sibanye has informed government that it wants to be the mining champion that the country is searching for.

Creamer: At the start of this year our Minerals Resources Minister Ngoako Ramathlodi said in London that he is looking for a national mining champion, because we have lost so much with the listing in London with Anglo American and Gencor became part of BHP Billiton.

The Australians were clever and made sure that BHP Billiton had a dual primary listing both in London and Melbourne. We weren’t so clever, so we have lost out on a lot. It was interesting this week when it was announced that Sibanye Gold were going to take over the platinum interests of Anglo American in Rustenburg. Under pressure from analysts and questions from them, it was revealed that Sibanye actually put up its hand and has been speaking to both the ruling party, the ANC, and the government and both of them collectively saying that they want to be the mining champion.

They might be named Sibanye Gold at the moment, but they are already moving into platinum and they are already in uranium and will change their name to Sibanye Resources. They will be far wider and will fulfil the national champion ideal. We know that Gwede Mantashe was saying that he lamented having been a mineworker and knowing that these companies were built on cheap labour in South Africa and took our gold and diamonds to become very big, how can they now claim that they are British. We need that national pride to return. We need some companies with corporate pride and perhaps this could be the start of that build up towards a national mining champion.

Kamwendo: Anglo American Platinum is in talks to sell off more of its platinum assets.

Creamer: Amplats is not the end of their disposal measures, they are also looking to sell off Union. Under questioning from analysts and the media again after the Sibanye deal they said that they are repositioning Union again for sale.

Also, they want to back out of the Pandora interests and the Bakoni interests. In the meantime, they made sure that they emphasise that they make these operations as best as they can before they actually can take them over to someone else. We can see they have done that with the Sibanye deal because they are prepared to protect Sibanye in this Rustenburg operation take over in the short term and then share in the mid term benefits.

Downside risk has been taken into account and they will be disposing more assets, because they want to go into the mechanised operation. We see Sibanye saying that they also want to modernise, although they are conventional they are going to go for appropriate technology and uplift their operations as well.

Kamwendo: The South African Mint is considering the minting and launch of a local platinum coin.

Creamer: This came out when media questioned Impala Platinum during their last results. It emerged that they are actually in discussion and providing the technical support at the moment to the South African mint to the potential platinum investment coin. This would be fantastic because we know that the gold coins in American went in a flurry in July, the Eagle coin.

There is also the Eagle platinum coin in the United States. South Africa, the home of platinum investment, could have an investment coin and this is what is being talked about at the moment. They are working with the mint on this and they say that it has been very successful. They have actually provided the metal for this.

Now, we know that a lot has to be done on demand side activity for platinum. We do rely on the world to create this demand. What about South African creating more demand? Well, this is a step in the right direction. We have also heard that perhaps the Reserve Bank will look at holding platinum as a reserve asset. We know that they are still being very cagy about that, but if you look at the figures the Reserve Bank sits on $47-billion worth of reserve assets. If they just take 500 000 ounces of platinum, it will be less then a percent of that. You can derisk that and make sure that they are in a good position should the platinum price go up.

One wonders why this is not done at a time when platinum really needs some support. The actual industrial front, what about doing something more on the fuel cells. The Department of Energy invite wind energy bids, sun energy bids, this may support suppliers from outside the country. What about inviting bids for 1 000 MW of fuel cell power. We know that this is clean power and that the fuel cell is actually operating at the Chamber of Mines now. They don’t use Eskom electricity.

They are off the grid and generate their own power for themselves. It is not only power that the fuel cell can do it can also go into your car and be the new engine for your car. There is so much promotional work needing to be done in the platinum space and perhaps South Africans can also make that contribution. The coin is a big thing, it could be an investment coin. Holding platinum as a reserve asset in the Reserve Bank and also perhaps pushing the fuel cell

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he’ll be back with us at the same time next week.