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The official sod-turning ceremony for the construction of the Mogale tailings retreatment project is to take place this month.

The Mogale gold dumps contain a probable mineral reserve of 123.6-million tons of re-mineable material at a head grade of 0.29 g/t for an estimated content of 1.14-million ounces of gold.

The definitive feasibility study (DFS) points to fast payback, low costs, 25% production uplift, long life, high ungeared return and the upliftment of a depressed area, where there is low employment, illegal mining activity, and serious environmental degradation.

Seen as an important mining and rehabilitation development for the West Rand District, the project - being undertaken by London- and Johannesburg-listed Pan African Resources - is expected to produce an average of 50 000 oz of gold a year over 20 years.

Near Krugersdorp and Kagiso, west of the Golden City of Johannesburg, it is expected to provide economic opportunity, local procurement, and jobs during construction and ongoing operations.

Modern technology was employed to survey available tonnages across the project area, with historical holes twinned to verify previously reported head grades. More than 80 new boreholes were sunk - totalling some 2 761 m of drilling - in areas with little or no data.

The DFS pointed to operating costs of R78/t and an all-in sustaining cost of $914/oz.

Standard hydro mining will be deployed and a large carbon-in-leach facility built, where the remined tailings will be processed with additional water treatment that will potentially improve gold recoveries.

At Pan African’s existing Elikhulu and Barberton tailings retreatment plants, optimised tailings management has reduced the pollution load on the surrounding land and underground water resources. This has resulted in improved freshwater quality and lower levels of radiation and toxicology, allowing the re-introduction of indigenous flora and fauna species to the area, which has shown an ability to recover faster. These same benefits can now be extended to the West Rand facilities.

Solar power generation is also on the cards at Mogale by Pan African, which pioneered the 10 MW photovoltaic solar plant at Elikhulu. Targeted by the group is an overall 30 MW of solar capacity by 2024. This will produce about 75 000 MWh of power a year, save about R100-million a year in electricity bills and reduce group carbon emissions. Beyond solar, battery technology and wind power are also under consideration.

The recovery of gold from dumps is viewed as a must as part of environmental restoration and making land available for proper re-use.

Steps being taken to add value to manganese waste placed on tailings dams may result in an announcement early in the New Year regarding the turning of that waste into a ferromanganese product, African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) CE Ferrous Division Andre Joubert has revealed.

While a good market remains for the export of high-grade quality manganese lumpy ore, the fines and slimes washed out of that ore - which represents about 15% of the total tonnage produced - is currently not sold, but put on the tailings facility, and work has now begun in that area of waste, Joubert said in response to chairperson Bernard Swanepoel at the London Indaba.

“The philosophy is to advance from being normal miners to exploiting the entire value chain with even the final product not being waste but gypsum,” Joubert said during the discussion covered by Mining Weekly.

Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed ARM works in partnership with Assore and group company Assmang in jointly mining manganese in the Northern Cape.

“We also have a few propeller heads in our company and about five or six years ago we had a strategic planning session, where it was clearly indicated that we are going to move forward in terms of better beneficiation and we coined the phrase that we’re not going to be just dirt diggers, we’re going to go up the value chain,” said Joubert.

“We’re well advanced in a process where I think we can make some announcements early in the New Year about taking waste that’s currently placed on the tailings dam and, with very efficient smelting technology, turning that into a good quality high-carbon ferromanganese product.

“We also run big ferromanganese smelters and in the slag of this ferromanganese we also have manganese oxide, which is a very good product to turn into high-grade battery-grade manganese sulphate and were getting very positive results.

If that comes to full fruition, traditionally mined ore for the traditional steel markets will continue to be mined and exported and fines turned into valuable product with 75% less electrical energy being required than is conventional used. The byproduct of that will be turned into battery-grade manganese sulphate and the final waste product will then be gypsum.

“I think making high-grade battery-grade manganese sulphate presents a huge opportunity,” said Joubert.

SOLAR POWER

At the mine, load haul dump trucks and underground haul trucks have been converted to battery electric vehicles. Because coal-fired power is still used to recharge the batteries, the next step will be the establishment of a solar plant for supply to the battery electric vehicles and in that way reduce the mine’s carbon footprint, which also makes economic sense.

MINES RECAPITALISED

“We’re very bullish about manganese and in 2012 we started recapitalising our mine so that we can be ready when the demand surge comes and the growth of the other mines has begun to taper down, and we’ve just completed that work.

“It’s very clear that there is going to be a manganese deficit in the future, whether for batteries or for steelmaking and it is because of the current mines operating. The open pit cheap mines are going to go underground, and the prices are going to go up,” said Joubert.

“We modernised our mine and in that modernisation process, we improved efficiencies and on the safety front, we’ve just achieved 11-million fatal-free shifts, which I think for an underground South African mine is an all-time record. In 14 years, we haven’t killed anyone in our mine and we’re well set up for the future,” Joubert added.

Mining flexibility has been achieved with outputs from four-million tons to five-million tons a year envisaged.

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses Cennergi’s power purchase agreement which will see it supply renewable energy to Exxaro’s flagship mine; the proudly South African High Pressure Water Technology that has gone mainstream; and the Venetia mine rapidly becoming a flagship in advancing De Beers’ climate ambition.

As the world accelerates the deployment of climate technologies in support of the net-zero transition, there is a risk that materials supply might not scale at the required speed, a new McKinsey & Company report warns.

To meet demand for minerals and metals used in battery electric vehicles (BEVs), wind turbines, solar panels and electrolysers, the report states that mining project development will need to far exceed historical growth rates, while the pace of exploration will also have to accelerate.

Investments in mining, refining and smelting will need to increase to about $3-trillion to $4-trillion by 2030, or about $300-billion to $400-billion a year, including capital expenditure for exploration and new and ongoing projects.

Likewise, such a scale-up will require smooth permitting processes, timely infrastructure deployment, equipment availability and adequate water resources.

“Labour capacity will also need to be increased by 300 000 to 600 000 specialised mining professionals, which could be particularly challenging given the recent decline in the number of mining engineering graduates,” the report warns.

There is also a requirement for an additional 200 GW to 500 GW of energy by 2030 to power these mining and processing assets, which will be equivalent to 5% to 10% of estimated solar and wind power capacity by 2030.

The report highlights the relative materials intensity of the key technologies required for the net-zero transition, with an offshore-wind turbine calculated to be some six times more materials-intensive than a gas-based installation on a megawatt basis, while BEVs are 15% to 20% heavier than internal combustion engine vehicles on average.

In addition, lower-carbon technologies require a new suite of materials that have been produced in only limited quantities in the past, such as lithium, a critical battery material, or rare-earth elements such as dysprosium and neodymium, which are used in permanent magnets.

The report forecasts that, while some materials such as nickel may experience modest shortages of between 10% and 20%, others such as dysprosium, a magnetic material used in most electric motors, could see shortages of up to 70% of demand.

Security of supply could also be affected by the fact that the supply of some of these materials is concentrated in a handful of countries, including for example China (rare-earth elements), the Democratic Republic of Congo (cobalt) and Indonesia (nickel).

“Combined with a regulatory landscape that is increasingly focused on regionalisation ­- as seen through the US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU Green Deal Industrial Plan, for example - these concentrated supplies could affect regional access to materials within the scope of certain agreement areas, even when the global market is balanced.”

The authors argue that, unless mitigation actions are put in place, shortages could hinder the global speed of decarbonisation as customers will be unable to shift to lower-carbon alternatives.

“Moreover, these shortages would lead to price spikes and volatility across materials, which in turn would make the technologies in which they are embedded more expensive and further slow adoption rates.”

With 72 countries, covering 82% of global emissions, having committed to net-zero emissions, several large consuming and producing countries have published critical minerals lists, while the International Energy Agency has started producing a yearly ‘Critical Minerals Market Review’, reflecting the importance of metals and minerals to the energy transition.

In South Africa, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has announced that government is developing a critical minerals strategy to support the development of domestic and global value chains for the green economy.

“It’s crucial to ensure the timely scale-up of projects that have already been announced so far, whilst also protecting future demand,” McKinsey & Company senior partner Michel Van Hoey argues.

“This wi...

he long-standing use of water to cool underground mines is increasingly providing the opportunity to apply the free water pressure head that this offers to energise mining equipment.

High-pressure water technology, a proudly South African technology, has advanced markedly over the last couple of decades, turning South Africa into a global leader in water hydraulics for mining.

“From humble beginnings back in the 80s, high-pressure water power has gone mainstream,” Hydro Power Equipment (HPE) director Ulrich Kienle told Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview this week. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Some 50 different mine sites are using water hydraulics as the primary powering medium to drive rock drills and mining machines and equipment can be configured into delivering any kind of mining solution using high-pressure water power.

Several mines on the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Complex have integrated modern trackless mining equipment with water hydraulics for doing board-and-pillar bolting activity - “a very interesting example of how you can fuse modern water technology with sophisticated trackless equipment”, said Kienle, who sees water energy as the opportunity for the South African mining industry to ensure longer life-of-mine and do things in a better way for the benefit of all stakeholders and society at large.

Amid the Eskom power crisis and the need for sustainability, water hydraulics is on the receiving end of unprecedented recognition: "We're beginning to have the kind of conversation with the mining industry that even a decade ago was not possible because the urgency just wasn't the same as it is today,” said Kienle.

“We live in a world today where sustainability, green credentials, decarbonisation are all big issues. Being able to use less energy to produce an ounce of gold or a ton of rock, and being in a position to not contaminate the environment, or precious water resources, means you're doing things in a way where the principles of ‘use less, don't contaminate and reuse’ are a given with water hydraulic technology.

“We've run a number of long-term production trials with some of the mining majors in both gold and platinum space and had these trials independently reviewed by third-party consultants that have put all sorts of measurement devices on to the water lines,” added Kienle, who believes that, “water ticks all the boxes”.

Mining Weekly: What opposition does mining with water face in water-short South Africa?

Kienle: It's one of those myths that we've worked really hard to dispel. At face value, people always say, mining with water in a water-scarce country, does it really make sense? The answer is an absolutely categorical 'yes'. Water hydraulics are efficient, they get the job done quickly; whatever water you have as a footprint on a mine site, that water is simply pressurised. It is then utilised and comes back out of the mine with the process continuing in a closed-loop cycle, with some losses to evaporation.

How financially competitive is high-pressure water power?

This is one of the big surprises. Initially, when water hydraulic technology was developed, it was quite expensive. Over the years, economies of scale have come into play and the technology today is surprisingly affordable.

WATER HAMMER TECHNOLOGY

Building blocks are available that are configured into a mining solution using water power.

"Those tools all exist. What we're particularly excited about are the latest developments. The first is what we call the Isidingo drill, which is in commercial use at six of our South African mines. We have combined it with a drill guide that allows us to deliver precise drilling and, as miners will tell you, good drilling makes blasting easy and good blasting means that you get maximised rates of advance and production. It also uses much less water than prior generation water drills.

"The second is about man-free boxholing. it's really quite clear that putting human beings into boxholes is p...

Financial close has been achieved for the 68 MW Lephalale solar project to supply renewable energy to the Grootegeluk coal mine in Limpopo.

This was announced on Wednesday by Cennergi, the wholly owned subsidiary of Exxaro Resources, Grotegeluk’s owner and operator. Cennergi will supply renewable energy to the flagship mine for 25 years through a power purchase agreement.

The project will result in energy cost savings, increased energy security and decarbonisation benefits for Exxaro, as well as fostering sustainable development and enhancing the socioeconomic benefits for local communities.

Leveraging solar power to meet Grootegeluk’s energy needs is a follow-through of the commitment of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Exxaro to pursue business sustainability and support the green energy transition.

Funding will take the form of limited recourse project finance debt from lenders, as well as equity investment from Cennergi as sole shareholder.

An engineering, procurement and construction contract will be awarded for the 19-month construction of the project, for which an operations and maintenance contract will also be awarded.

“This project represents a significant milestone in South Africa's renewable energy landscape and showcases the enormous potential of clean energy in driving economic growth and reducing carbon emissions,” Exxaro CEO Dr Nombasa Tsengwa stated in a media release to Mining Weekly.

The Lephalale solar project, which will serve as a direct behind-the-meter clean energy source, spans 236 ha of Exxaro land, near Eskom's Matimba coal-fired power station, to which Exxaro supplies coal on contract, as well as the town of Marapong.

A thrilled Exxaro Resources MD energy Leon Groenewald described the solar project as a landmark renewable energy partnership.

The major theme of the recent Junior Indaba was the concern that the South African regulator is not doing enough to promote junior mining in South Africa.

Government’s role should be to cut red tape from the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act to bring the application system for prospecting rights and mining rights up to standard because it is capable of manipulation by corrupt officials. That must be sorted out, Malan Scholes Attorneys director and mining lawyer Hulme Scholes told Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview on Tuesday. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The second thing is that government must prioritise crime in the mining industry and help mining deal with it.

“Those are the two immediate action items that the government should attend to,” said Scholes.

Then, from a planning perspective, stable electricity supply is very necessary: “You can't plan your operations in circumstances where you have an inability to determine what the power plan is for the country.”

On the mining industry being subject to unprecedented levels of crime at the moment, the permanent positioning of mines makes local crime control absolutely essential.

“You can't lift up your mine and move to an area where there's less crime. You’re stuck in the area where you are, and the police are definitely not doing enough to investigate, prevent and prosecute criminal activity in mining areas. Zama Zama mining, unlawful mining, so-called procurement extortion, theft of cable, all those sort of things, are just out of control.

“Mining companies are spending more and more and more of their budgets on crime prevention. They’re doing the crime prevention the State should be doing.

“Communities who are desperate are looking to mining companies for their basic needs and if they can't get their basic needs met, out of frustration they try and extort that out of mining companies.

“We've been to court for more times and I can remember to interdict the sort of very often violent behaviour by a frustrated communities who want mining companies to provide them with basic services that the State is not providing them with,” Scholes pointed out.

STILL A LOT OF MINING LEFT

If South Africa’s regulatory environment was more conducive to expansion, if the government was more driven and there were more policy drivers to expand mining, this country could do a lot better than it is doing at the moment.

“There's a lot more mining left in South Africa. It's not a sunset industry, but we just don't have enough from the government to grow our mining industry,” said Scholes, who highlighted South Africa has having some very advanced laws. “We have a very advanced system of social and labour plans. The systems are there, the law is there.

“Like a lot of things in South Africa, our environmental laws are some of the best in the world, but the policing and the enforcement is lacking. That’s where we face challenges.”

The De Beers Group, which concluded in principle diamond sales and mining agreements with the government of Botswana at the weekend, has committed a billion pula (R1.4-billion) upfront to fund the development of diversification within Botswana.

“I've just returned from Botswana and I'm really delighted that we've reached agreement in principle with the government of Botswana,” De Beers Group CFO Sarah Kuijlaars told Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The new mining license in Botswana will run to 2054, an additional 25 years, and the sales agreement for another ten years, to 2033.

“I think it's worth remembering that these are quite complex agreements, covering the midstream, but also the upstream, so Debswana, and an extension of the mining licence in Botswana.

“A couple of highlights to pull out. We've announced the initiation of a Diamonds for Development Fund, and we've committed to put a billion pula upfront.

“This fund is for the development of diversification within Botswana, looking at adjacencies beyond diamonds, and potentially into agriculture, climate change, solar development, and tourism,” said Kuijlaars.

The development fund will be managed separately from De Beers for the benefit of the Botswanan people.

“It's the acknowledgement of the desire by Botswana to get involved across the value chain within the diamond industry,” Kuijlaars said of the fund, which involves an increased role with though the Okavango Diamond Company or ODC, a rough diamond marketing company that is wholly owned by the Botswana government.

“We offer our global customer base open access to scale supply of the full range of rough diamonds sourced from Botswana and increased opportunity in cutting and polishing and increased opportunity in jewellery manufacturing, so overall, a real opportunity to create more jobs for Botswanan people in Botswana,” added Kuijlaars.

“These have been a really complex negotiations over many years. But we have agreed in principle and you're you'll have seen that representatives of the government of Botswana have come out publicly as well.”

The agreements will proceed to the terms arrangement, and then to the long form agreement, which ultimately will have to go to the shareholders of Anglo American, as this is a related party agreement between the group and the government of Botswana.

Mining Weekly: Would you describe the talks as being convivial?

Kuijlaars: Any negotiation can get tough at some point, but I think what's really important is we're firmly aligned, and I think it's great to see some many photos of the firm handshake of the Minister and Al Cook on Saturday morning, demonstrating our commitment for the future.

Has mining been held up while you people have been talking?

No, mining hasn't been held up, but I think we've got to acknowledge there was an expectation around the industry. It is an ecosystem, a global ecosystem, so I think there was some uncertainty, and that's why it's so important that we have demonstrated our partnership, demonstrated alignment, which gives some real clarity for the whole industry going forward.

Diamond mining and marketing company De Beers and the Botswana government have reached an in-principle agreement on a 25-year extension of the Debswana mining licences, through to 2054, and a new ten-year sales agreement for Debswana’s rough diamond production, through to 2033.

Debswana, a 50:50 joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government, operates four diamond mines in Botswana, and joint work to progress and implement the formal new sales agreement and mining licences will now take place.

In the interim, the terms of the most recent sales agreement, which expired on Friday, will remain in place.

A new sales agreement constitutes a related party transaction under the UK listing rules, given that both Anglo American and Botswana are shareholders in De Beers, and therefore will be subject to approval by Anglo’s shareholders in due course, Mining Weekly has been informed in an Anglo media release.

A release from Botswana states that the agreements reflect the aspirations of the people of Botswana.

De Beers' global approach to diamond mining spans two continents and four countries. In South Africa is the large, modern, long-life and climate-conforming Venetia, with the joint venture marine diamond prospecting and recovery company Debmarine in Namibia, Gahcho Kué in Canada, and an exploration contract in Angola.

The 135-year-old De Beers last month opened its new Sightholder Sales South Africa, a diamond processing operation, close to Johannesburg International Airport.

At the opening, De Beers CEO Al Cook spoke of the impressive facility being filled with diamond expertise, diamond technology and rough diamonds and spurring the growth of a South African diamond business hub.

The 6 747 m2 Sky Park facility is part of the global sightholder network that sells rough diamonds for beneficiation purposes in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Canada and has two floors comprising sightholder offices, hand- and machine-sorting areas, a training academy and a diamond cleaning plant.

De Beers is in the process of taking far-reaching steps in Southern Africa to combat climate change. Wheeled wind and on-site solar are being developed for Venetia, which will hopefully result in South Africa’s largest diamond mine being largely renewably energised by the end of 2025. If all goes according to plan, this would lower Venetia’s carbon footprint by more than 80%.

Currently, the carbon footprint of using Southern African electricity is greater than using diesel, which means that as soon as the renewable power is connected, Venetia’s emissions will decline very steeply.

A comprehensive climate-action overview can be obtained from this link:

The need for sand to make bricks has resulted in Limpopo entrepreneur stumbling upon a gold prospect for which a prospecting licence application has been acknowledged by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE).

Kaputeni Mining head Tsholofelo Shipalanah, a 34-year-old mother who is making 3 000 bricks a day and generating R200 000 to R400 000 a year, intends using some of the revenue to also fund a gold search. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

In wanting to put an end to procuring river sand for brickmaking mined by others, Kaputeni applied to the DMRE for the right to mine sand – and discovered that the sand area sought has a gold-mining history.

As a consequence, in addition to applying for the sand mining licence, Kaputeni now also wants a gold prospecting licence, with aspirations of becoming a gold miner in the area of Burgersdorp, a village outside of Tzaneen, where Shipalanah proudly declares being “born and bred”.

DMRE has already let Kaputeni know that no other application has been submitted for the area in question.

Mining Weekly: It's good to have a business going which is generating cash that you can then use to prospect. Is that the idea?

Shipalanah: That is the idea.

On how Kaputeni goes about selling its bricks, Shipalanah said: ”We sell them to the surrounding communities and we’ve started talks with BuildIt so that we can be their supplier. We’re in the process of finalising the contract with BuildIt. What will happen is BuildIt will buy from me in bulk and then they will sell to their customers.”

Shipalanah initially pursued a career in the sciences, having earned a Bachelor of Science Honours degree from the University of Limpopo in 2011. With aspirations of becoming a scientist, she secured her first job as a technician at the national blood service.

However, in the midst of all that, watching her father running his own construction company inspired her to pursue entrepreneurship. “Every time I looked at him, I would think ‘no man, this is something that I want to try’”, which she did, and her father is now a 20% shareholder of Kaputeni, which has 16 permanent employees.

Earlier this year, Kaputeni invested in a generator to shield itself from the disruptive downtime caused by loadshedding, but amid the high price of diesel, Shipalanah is now intent on, at some time in the future, transitioning to renewable energy.

Since embarking on her entrepreneurial path in 2018, Shipalanah’s business has experienced growth with the help of Fetola and the SAB Foundation's Tholoana Enterprise Programme.

Fetola means ‘change’ in Sesotho and the Fetola team describes itself as being inspired by United Nations Goal 17 to foster partnerships that are a force for good.

On assistance received, Shipalanah highlighted how the programme provides a mentor to enable prospective entrepreneurs to establish a business structure. “It's very, very helpful,” she enthused – and interestingly, she is continuing to study – this time project management through Unisa.