https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

On-The-Air (31/07/2015)

safm31july2015

31st July 2015

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

Font size: - +

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: Anglo American Platinum’s R1-billion marketing splurge has sparked an upsurge in platinum jewellery demand in China.

Creamer: Like a lot of other commodity prices, the platinum price is down. Anglo American Platinum have had to take things that were normally voted to discounts and commissions and put them into a fund to boost their platinum market. One of the areas they saw low hanging fruit was jewellery. When the price drops, normally there is bigger demand for jewellery. They looked at the Chinese market and they injected some life into it. They are already getting return on the bridal jewellery market. They are going deeper into that market and they find that even the remaining part of that market, the non-bridal, depends a lot on love and emotion, so they are pressing with doing more in that field. Also, the investment is not going to be a sort of spray-and-pray approach, they are very targeted. There is a new World Council set-up to promote the sale of investment bars, the bars of platinum that have also got a very important market. Then the fuel-cell area is really moving and fuel-cells are now powering blocks of flats in Japan. That could be a lesson for South Africa, because this is very clean fuel, because it is the platinum based fuel-cell which gives no emission at all. We know that Hyundai is also very keen to put more cars on the road. They are planning to put 1 000 fuel-cell-powered cars on the road this year. They are also setting up hydrogen infrastructure. That is also very important: that you can get the gas that you need to get these fuel-cells going then we get the benefit of the platinum being the catalyst inside that, that makes all the electricity and makes the car go. It is much better than the battery cars, because the range is far bigger. We see that the irony in platinum at the moment is that market fundamentals are not actually influencing the market. We would think that supply and demand would actually push market prices, but it is not happening. Demand is there for a lot of the commodities for platinum have risen, but it still is not pushing the price up, because of that pure global macro economic sentiment.

Kamwendo: The Johannesburg Stock Exchange has launched a world-aligned oil and gas reporting code for new listings.

Creamer: When mining company’s list, they also have codes that they have to adhere to. They have to state clearly how much metals and minerals in the ground has to be properly checked and measured. You have all different categories of reporting so that your investor knows what the situations are before he puts his money into your company. They are now doing this with oil and gas, because there is so much talk about oil and gas. We know that there is exploration going on off our coast and Mozambique particularly has hit a very rich vein of gas. We know that Namibia is looking at the gas prospects. The time has come, also in Africa, now to have a proper investment code. The hope is a lot of the investment into oil and gas assets will be done through the JSE that is they have worked so closely with the South African oil and gas committee Andy Clay from Venmyn Deloitte, who four years ago started working on this. We know that our national plan now refers to gas, we even have a gas find off our coast in the Western Cape. That gas is now envisaged to power one of our smaller peak power stations. Gas is in the news and the expectation is that there will be more gas and oil and gas listings in the stock exchange. They will be ready with a world aligned code and they have brought in all the world bodies and they are closely working with the Alberta Securities Exchange.

Kamwendo: Cuba is reviewing its mining policies to attract foreign mining investment.

Creamer: A lot of action around Cuba at the moment. People looking at Cuba  is the result of 54-years of isolation now being removed. The Americans coming back with diplomatic relations. They have not removed the embargo yet, but it is only a matter of time before it happens. They are starting to make their mining side a little bit more attractive. They are looking at the mining act and mining legislation and tax and trying to get people interested in mining so that they can say that the risk is moving away and the reward is now far more apparent. We know that there is a bit of an anomaly there, because we know Fidel Castro took power there in 1959 and then the Americans put the embargo in 1960. Canadians were pretty brave on the mining front and they just said that they are going in. Then in 1994 a company listed in Toronto, Sherritt, took over assets that were previously held by an American company. This is creating a bit of an interesting situation, because the claims are now made that it still belongs to the Americans, but it is being worked by Sherritt and they have been producing nickel and engage in petroleum and oil and gas. They are just carrying on, of course, the actual outcome of that is still to be seen. In the meantime the government of Cuba is keen to attract more foreign investment in the areas around exploration and mining.

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.

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

Showroom

Alco-Safe
Alco-Safe

An unmanned breathalyser that is made to be tough and simple to use. Can be used in any environment for operator-free breathalyser testing.

VISIT SHOWROOM 
Booyco Electronics
Booyco Electronics

Booyco Electronics, South African pioneer of Proximity Detection Systems, offers safety solutions for underground and surface mining, quarrying,...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.096 0.151s - 143pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now