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

Kamwendo: A gold mine is being restarted in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province.

Creamer: You know the gold price is so good and having such a good gold price is so important for South Africa. To the extent that mines are being restarted. This mine was the Burnstone mine and it has got a lot of infrastructure in place. It has even got trackless mobile equipment in place, so that this can get going very quickly and will probably get going early next year and start production. When they start production, they start exporting gold that is sold internationally and we get a lot of foreign exchange.

So, always these mines are fantastic. It is being done by Sibanye-Stillwater and that is a company that also is involved in platinum group metals. Those are also doing very well. So, on the mining front, there is a lot of revenue coming in, a lot of free cash and people are looking to investments. On top of that they have got a second project that they will build in Tasmania, Australia. That is a copper, gold, silver project. Again, this is going to be a quick start. Nobody is going into greenfield or long-term investments. These are responsible investments that are going to give return very fast.

Kamwendo: Hydrogen truck fleets in China are presenting a massive opportunity for South Africa’s platinum mines.

Creamer: We need to have markets and there was always a concern that when there was a change in the way people drove their cars and they went over to electrical battery electric vehicles, the market for platinum would be lost because the existing market is heavily dependent on what we call internal combustion engines that need to make sure that the exhaust fumes do not get into the atmosphere and platinum plays a big role there. But a lot of research is going into where platinum can be used and the big trucks are really being seen now as a very important area.

What is happening in China is you get hydrogen trucks going around with fuel cell and if you have a fuel cell they are using platinum and they are looking at the big refrigeration trucks as well. So all the mobility side that is lost on the one end could be heavily regained on the other. And not only that, but you know, the South African company that has been doing all this research and looking at possible 6-million ounces of market there for us is also going to be have an employee that will be the chairperson next year of a major international hydrogen and fuel cell association that is based in Beijing, so they will have insight into major marketing activities, and of course, you know, artificial intelligence is another area that looks like presenting major market opportunities for platinum group metals, which is good for South Africa

Kamwendo: Northam Platinum’s Eland mine is on its way to being powered solely by sun and wind energy.

Creamer: This is the thing with all the mines today. They all want to generate renewable energy. They all have responsibilities to lower the carbon emissions, and they also have this opportunity to generate their own sun and wind energy at a cost which is considerably lower than what they have to pay to Eskom at the moment.

So you see mines like Eland being proud to say that they are heading towards becoming the first platinum group metals mine that will be totally supplied by renewable energy, sun and wind, and then they go further and they say that they also looking at conserving water, and they will be able to generate their own water for the mine, which will make it a totally green mine, and that is what you know all these mines are looking for at the moment, they very conscious of protecting the environment, and they're also very conscious of cutting their costs. It's an important development.

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