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

Perlman: Lots of people think gold is a diminishing asset, but some people think differently. Tell us.

Creamer: One of Africa's greatest gold go-getters, who is also South African, is Dr Mark Bristow. He is the CEO of Rangold Resources, the ten-year-old company, which has become a $1-billion company in ten years from exploring in Africa. Bristow says South Africa is 'exploited' rather than 'explored', which is quite an indictment on our exploration, because many in South Africa believe that this country is mined-out, but Bristow believes that there is still a lot of potential. Why we have reached the 'exploited' rather than 'explored' situation is because we are 'too production orientated' and not exploration orientated. He says South Africans are not exploration orientated, because we have been so spoilt from the super-abundance of mineral riches on the Witwatersrand with gold and now also in the Bushveld with platinum, which many see as Aladdin's Caves, requiring minimal exploration. Bristow says that South African geologists have been reduced to being decorations and they haven't really been supported in getting down to exploring this country and I think we should listen to him, because he has had such success with exploration. He is a former academic from Kwazulu-Natal University in geology, moved into Africa, created the biggest gold mine north of the Limpopo in Morila. Bristow is now pouring gold from his second gold-mine, Loulo, which will be a 30-year gold mine, and he has got a lot of other prospects in Africa. He is saying that the base of South Africa's resources triangle is not looked after, and that South Africans are interested only in the pinnacle - production. He laments the fact that mining is the biggest job creator in Africa, but the biggest job destroyer in South Africa and says that there is no need for gold-mine liquidations in South Africa and people should have been managing this industry far better. He is someone who has found 15-million resource ounces of gold in Africa and turned his company from zero to a $1-billion company, which is listed on the London and Nasdaq stock exchanges.

Perlman: Our taxis are being changed in all sorts of ways and the way they fill-up at petrol stations are going to have to change as well, I believe.

Creamer: South Africa's new-look taxi recapitalisation programme is now out of the starting blocks and one of the things the South African government has retained from the old recap plan is that it is going to be diesel or nothing. The vehicles are going to have to be diesel-driven and not petrol-driven. This has very interesting implications for South Africa, because we have a fuel imbalance in South Africa. Although petrol and diesel are created on a one-to-one basis during the production process, they are used on a ten-part-petrol to seven-part-diesel basis. We thus have a surplus of diesel and if one estimates that taxis use about 10 % of petrol, if they are now required to use diesel, it will mean that the balance will change to nine-parts petrol and eight-parts diesel, which has huge implications for lowering the importation of crude-oil, which is costing us a lot at the moment, because of the price of crude-oil going up. The government is now insisting that it is diesel or nothing. Diesel, of course, from a mechanical point of view, also has advantages, because you have the benefit of lower horse-power and greater torque, which is far more suitable for activity in the high-density traffic areas of cities. The first step towards scrapping the old taxis is coming this month, when tenders will be called for the management of the scrapping of 78 000 taxis, which is going to be an interesting process. Of course, 51 000 of the 78 000 taxis are said to be 15 years old and 4 000 about 25 years old, so the age-profile is high.

Perlman: Martin, I checked the dates and it is not April 1, so I am going to have to believe you - 'potjiekos' needs a 'potjiekos pot' and you are telling me that even South Africa's 'potjie pots' are now coming in from China.

Creamer: As unbelievable as it may sound, our 'potjiekos' pots are being manufactured in China and, of course, we have Cadac, which is so synonymous with outdoor activity in South Africa, actually having them manufactured now in China. The background to this is the vulnerability of our local manufacture to high input costs. Because our input costs are so high, Cadac, which has a Roodepoort factory, decided that if it was going to compete in the world and keep its export business, it would have to seek lower input costs and it found those in China, where it has three manufacturers working for it, and also manufacturing potjie pots, which are now imported into South Africa from China for vitreous enamelling in South Africa. The upshot is that South Africa has ended up with a Cadac factory that is a shadow of its former self. It used to have 250 people, but now has only 50 people. What has quadrupled locally is the design aspect. Because of the fact that tooling costs in China are 15 % of what they are in South Africa, Cadac can now keep changing its designs, so the company is bringing more and more new designs of outdoor-heating products on to the market, making its export ratio 50:50 and exporting prolifically into Europe and Australia. But local manufacturing component is well down, all because of South Africa's high input costs. One has to take note of the problems that arise with high input costs and the vulnerability of South African manufacturers to high local input costs, which are decimating local manufacture.

Perlman: Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he'll be back with us at the same time next week.

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