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Lethabo Exploration, which started out as an exploration company, has since transitioned into mining iron-ore in Limpopo, and has secured an offtake agreement.

Lethabo is 100% South African black-owned and to date, it has been 100% self-funded, which means the company has no external debt-funding obligations, Lethabo Exploration CEO Mandy Malebe told the Junior Indaba this week. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“Lethabo’s truly a first of its kind, with its director and executive body being local people born and bred in rural Limpopo, in the district of Sekhukhune, and having mining rights for projects and greenfield exploration in Sekhukhune, which takes in the areas such as Steelpoort and Burgersfort. That’s home and it’s also home to our mining projects.

“Being local people from Sekhukhune and mining in our home area, our commitment to the development that we want to see there is personal because of the background that we have and also being exposed to the poverty there,” Malebe said in a presentation covered by Mining Weekly.

Lethabo is affiliated to Minerals Council South Africa, of which it has been a member since 2020, and Malebe serves as one of the deputy chairs of the Exploration and Junior Miners Leadership Forum on the Junior and Emerging Miners Desk. At last week’s Minerals Council annual general meeting, Malebe was appointed as a council board member.

It is also associated to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), where it participates in the entrepreneurial accelerator programme, sponsored by Minerals Council South Africa.

This programme is designed to help businesses to access investors and capital, as well as access funding through the option of listing on the JSE, which is seen as essentially increasing South Africa’s employment status as a nation and contributing to the economy.

The social economy which is within Lethabo’s immediate reach is that of Sekhukhune, where it holds mining rights for iron-ore, vanadium, chrome, platinum-group metals, titanium and andalusite.

Its mining rights cover the farms Malekskraal, Waterkop and Mecklenburg, situated on the eastern limb of the Bushveld Complex.

For mining continuity, it has secured the mining rights on the farms Waterkop and Mecklenburg, which are neighbouring farms along the R37 provincial route, and mining rights for iron-ore and its byproducts at Malekskraal. The three farms together cover 8 370 ha.

“As a self-funded company from inception to date, our progress and project development has been dependent solely on the success of other non-mining-related projects that we run and have used to provide capital.

“This is extremely difficult and challenging, especially because mining requires such high volumes of cash injection, not to mention the costs incurred to outsource expert opinion through consultants, geologists and surveyors,” Malebe explained.

Lethabo set out in 2007 when its first prospecting rights application was submitted to the Department of Minerals Resources and Energy (DMRE), finally executing its mining rights this year, “so that’s after 16 years of being on the receiving end of bureaucracy, litigation, no-access to funding and limited access to markets.

“As an emerging mining company, being black-owned and being women-led does not make us immune to the challenges that are common to the industry – access to markets, capital, human capital, and the DMRE’s legitimate intervention at a regional level. We are too young a company to even comment on the access’s real issues,” Malebe said.

Malekskraal is the only site where site establishment has been done, the construction of a weighbridge has been competed and opencast mining operations has begun.

Implementing this project was the outcome of many debates where Lethabo was faced with potential buyers resisting to commit to a project that had no existing operations.

With no access to project funding for mining, Lethabo resorted to starting “where you are, with what you have. Again, our su...

In conjunction with its Aquis Stock Exchange-listing in London, Marula Mining is going to have an additional listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), Marula Mining CEO Jason Brewer told the Junior Indaba on Wednesday.

“We’re in the process of appointing our advisers,” said Brewer, who spoke of Copper 360 as having done “a fantastic job” with its April listing on the AltX of the JSE. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Battery metals investment and exploration company Marula, With its Blesberg lithium and tantalum mine in the Northern Cape, has received a funding boost by clinching a partnership with Q Global Commodities, headed by South Africa’s Quinton van der Burgh.

“We’re very much focused on making sure we are an African focused company. Whilst listed in London, to be honest guys, it’s post box for us. Our whole operating administrative team is based out of Nairobi. We have an office in Kimberley. We have an office in Dar es Salaam, and we have literally just there in Sandton, we have our major shareholder and our funding partner in place, which is critical for us.

“One of the big reasons about being here and coming here on the JSE is we did a transaction earlier this year with Quinton van der Bergh, who is probably best known from the coal-mining sector.

“He’s diversifying into the metals, the hard-rock, and certainly into battery metals. He’s coming on. Q Global Commodities are going to be taking a 51% interest in us. Quinton is going to be taking his first seat, I believe, on a listed company, and they are investing a lot. Basically he funds us through all our projects, the project here in South Africa, the three projects in Tanzania, and the one’s we’re going to be announcing duly in Zimbabwe and Kenya. So, Patrycja (a reference to JSE business development manager Patrycja Kula, who was present in the audience) we’ll be working very closely with your team to make sure we add to those 12 junior mining companies on the exchange,” Brewer told the Indaba, chaired by mining luminary Bernard Swanepoel.

“We’re working with communities we live with and that brings on additional responsibilities. In the space of six months, we’ve grown our workforce from three to just over 100 people, here in the Northern Cape and up in Tanzania, so we’re moving very quickly, and certainly by the end of the year, we’re probably going to be about 250 to 300 people.

Blesberg, operated intermittently for more than 80 years, has 250 000 t to 400 000 t of stockpiled waste. This was a small operation mined primarily for its tantalite.

“Within that pegmatite, is very high grade spodumene, lithium. We’ve done multiple samples there. It’s running between 5% and 8% of what is typically exported as a spodumene concentrate, so we stated reprocessing those dumps n November. We secured a prepayment from a Swiss-based trading group for $5-million to completely buy out all the minority shareholders and fund the initial development there.

“Just last month, we took delivery of six brand new bits of mobile mining equipment, courtesy of Q Global Commodities, courtesy of Bell Equipment. That has allowed us in the space of a month to double production, double the movement of volumes from that mine.

“We are now delivering the spodumene concentrate through to our offtaker. The first deliveries are taking place this week.

“We’ve had a pilot plant in Joburg taking that spodumene and producing lithium carbonate, something we’re focused on – not just producing a raw product but producing an intermediate product,” said Brewer.

The lithium carbonate produced in the pilot plant has been tested and the process is being independently verified with a view to producing an initial 1 000 t a year of lithium carbonate which is going for roughly $40 000/t.

“For a company of our size producing at a revenue base just purely on that is going to be something very significant for us,” said Brewer.

More than one-third – about 4 000, or 35% – of mining CEOs polled by PwC for its latest global mining report consider their company to be highly or extremely exposed to climate-related risks within the next five years.

The global drive to reduce carbon emissions notwithstanding, this year’s ‘Mine 2023: The era of reinvention’ report – the twentieth edition of the global report – found that the geopolitical instability of last year resulted in surging demand for coal, making coal the largest contributor to the top 40 mining companies' overall revenue at 28%. This is the first time that coal has been at the top of the list since 2010.

Despite the continued demand for coal, however, the drive to transition global society to more sustainable energy sources is resulting in the most significant development that the sector has witnessed in decades – the era of critical minerals.

Although demand for critical minerals is rising rapidly, these minerals – other than copper – accounted for only a small share of the top 40 companies’ overall revenue for 2022, with increasing production volumes but volatile prices.

Spending on the search for critical minerals such as copper, lithium and cobalt grew significantly last year, although PwC expects the total exploration spending to decline this year as earnings soften.

In this more dynamic and intensely competitive environment, PwC’s report asserts that miners can no longer rely on the portfolios and methods of the past to generate value.

One shift that PwC believes demands a response is the emergence of government as an important new category of player in the critical minerals market.

“After seeing rapid demand growth and risky levels of supply chain concentration, governments around the globe have formed alliances, instituted new policies and mobilised funding to secure access to critical minerals. These moves are expected to change the mining business,” PwC Africa energy, utilities and resources leader Andries Rossouw said during a presentation of findings in the report on June 7.

He said the inflow of public funds, for example, meant that miners would need to rethink the rates of return they could expect on mining or supply chain assets. Mining companies would also need to contend with heightened investment risk and greater competition, as governments altered the playing field with incentives and interventions.

The mine report has shown that government action in the critical minerals space has taken on three forms.

Firstly, there are an increasing number of government-to-government strategic partnerships or trade agreements centred on critical minerals collaboration.

Secondly, new laws, policies or regulations are being created and enacted to protect, secure or drive growth in critical minerals and supply chains.

Lastly, direct government funding or government-backed funds are being provided to finance ventures in critical minerals and their supply chains.

The result of governments entering the market is that there will be a greater demand for critical minerals, which will alter the financial picture, increasing investment risk and driving competition to new heights. In addition, increasingly stringent environmental standards will be imposed on miners owing to the public sector’s involvement.

PwC’s report shows that critical minerals transactions dominated deal activity last year, as both large and small mining companies raced to reposition themselves for the energy transition.

As a result, the value of critical minerals deals increased by 151% from 2021, accounting for 66% of all deal value in 2022. Copper was the year’s “hottest” commodity, representing 85% of all critical minerals transactions.

However, PwC energy, utilities and resources south market tax leader Laetitia Le Roux highlighted that, even as the global mining industry strived to increase output of critical minerals to support the energy transition, mining company leaders were keenly aware that they must reduce their carbon...

Outgoing Minerals Council South Africa’s Roger Baxter told the Junior Indaba's opening day that the CEO of a junior mining company is typically a chief cook and bottlewasher – and Botswana Diamonds MD James Campbell was quick to confirm that.

“I’ve been chief cook and bottlewasher for the past 20 years almost, and I’m now running my fourth junior,” said Campbell. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“I’m typically the only diamond geezer here and what is quite sad is that according to my records, Botswana Diamonds is the only active listed diamond junior in the sub-continent, in the region, and we hope that, over the passage of time, this will improve,” added Campbell in acknowledging indaba chairperson Bernard Swanepoel and indaba organiser Paula Munsie, the CEO of Resources4Africa, for continuing to spotlight junior mining in South Africa.

On juniors typically wanting to discover something and then be bought out by a mining major, Campbell gave the discover-and-sell strategy the thumbs down: “I think that’s the wrong mindset," said Campbell during his presentation covered by Mining Weekly.

“You’ve got to discover something with the mindset of mining it and delivering capital gains by being a diamond producer. We focus on geology and without good geology, you can’t do anything,” he added.

In South Africa, Botswana Diamonds is focused on production at Marsfontein and Thorny River, in Limpopo province, and in Botswana, it is dual listed with the London Stock Exchange.

In Zimbabwe, it has three joint ventures, but sadly diamond companies cannot operate there unless linked with one four companies there and joint ventures are not encouraged.

“But it’s highly prospective from a geological perspective, so we’d like to be there one day, and I’d certainly like to build a diamond mine in Zimbabwe before I hang up my geological boots,” Campbell commented.

Botswana Diamonds plc is funded by investors out of the UK and Ireland who typically have a high-risk mindset. It has no offices and during Covid, it got by with £384 000 for the year, which included auditing compliance, legal fees and field work.

“We’re very, very miserly with our money, because it is our money,” said Campbell, who reports that very little diamond exploration is taking place.

The older mines are getting deeper and more costly, which means that diamonds prices will rise amid demand for diamonds continuing to rise.

“Of course, we have black swan events, like the global financial crisis, Covid and the war in Ukraine, but these tend to be transitory and we carry on with the longer term trend,” he outlined.

Displaying a slide showing pictures of production at Marsfontein and Thorny River, Campbell applauded South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.

“There’s very little comparable legislation for a mining permit in other jurisdictions which allow juniors, such as ourselves and others, to get by with the minimal amount of bureaucracy and into production.

“In fact, we were in production on this property within three months of actually setting up,” he said, showing an image of his hand holding diamonds.

SHARE PRICE IS EVERYTHING

Campbell emphasised that the share price of junior resource companies “is everything”, with market capitalisation meaning very little – “size is nothing”.

The company arranged a deal with a royalty miner where it does the technical and compliance work and the royalty miner provides all the capital and the operating cost.

This has minimal financial impact on shareholders, with the cash being generated for Botswana Diamonds.

“It’s not saying that we’re going to do every project like that, but when you’re mining dumps and alluvial deposits, where the resource risk is high, it makes sense to do it this way,” Campbell explained.

Namibia is the best jurisdiction in Africa in which to mine, Andrada Mining CEO Anthony Viljoen told the Junior Indaba on Tuesday.

London Aim-listed tin, tantalum and now lithium mining company recalled how it had looked across African jurisdictions when initially pursuing tin-mining opportunities and had found Namibia to be a cut above. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“Namibia is easy stock. I’m a miner not a politician, but I can tell you that Namibia’s a very happy place for our money. I can’t say enough good things about being invested in Namibia and Namibia’s geology is absolutely fascinating, the Erongo region in particular,” Viljoen told the indaba, chaired by mining luminary Bernard Swanepoel.

Erongo is one of the 14 regions of Namibia. Its capital, Swakopmund, is named after Mount Erongo, a well-known landmark in Namibia and in this area. Erongo contains the municipalities of Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Henties Bay and Omaruru, as well as the towns Arandis, Karibib and Usakos.

“You’ve got these pegmatite belts, which are not uncommon. But these pegmatite belts are quite unique in Namibia in that they run for hundreds of kilometres, east and west, and they swarm all the way up and down the coast,” Viljoen told the indaba covered by Mining Weekly.

Usually pegmatite belts pinch out after a couple of hundred metres to a kilometre.

“But Namibia’s are just incredibly long and incredibly thick, hundreds of metres thick. When we picked up the licences, we picked up the old licence areas because there was a lot of geological data and the biggest of those old mining areas was the old Uis tin mine, that was once an Iscor asset.”

Iscor was formerly South Africa’s State-owned steelmaking enterprise that was unbundled and sold.

There was a huge amount of data that allowed Andrada, formerly AfriTin, to get stuck in.

What the old-timers would do is they would follow the pegmatite belts, find where they outcropped and open a pit.

As they mined over 12 historic pits, Andrada had the benefit of that historic reserve. It did a confirmatory drilling programme concurrent with developing the plant and at the biggest of the historic pits, it did down dip extensions, to find that the orebody was 70% bigger that had been historically declared.

The company also tested for a variety of different elements that are typically within pegmatite and what it found that associated with one of the biggest tin deposits by inventory size is also one of the biggest lithium deposits.

It still has another 900 holes to confirm, which were displayed on a satellite image.

“Where this becomes just so fantastically huge for us is that all those orange marks on the satellite image are pegmatite. We’ve got another 180 outcropping pegmatites within our licence area. The extent of our mineralisation is huge,” said Viljoen.

Andrada has gone into production on a shoestring with the help of South African engineers and has embarked on an expansion project to increase capacity and become a polymetallic producer of lithium, tin, and tantalum.

“But by far amongst everything we’re doing, lithium is really taking centre stage,” said Viljoen.

Steps are now being taken to sell the lithium concentrate being produced into industrial and chemical markets.

The results of the green hydrogen atlas for Southern Africa, now readily available online, show enormous potential green hydrogen production throughout the region, the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (Sasscal) said on Monday.

A joint initiative of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Germany, Sasscal has collaborated with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency as a technical implementing partner.

The results of the H2Atlas-Africa project, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, are presented in the form of an interactive atlas, which shows ‘locations of interest’ in Southern African countries.

The interactive atlas is seen as the first science-based decision support tool for the development of green hydrogen pilot plants, with contributions from 60 scientists, 16 modellers and a 12-member regional technical committee team.

It can be accessed via/. and provides information on different resources for green hydrogen production. These include ground and surface water resources, land availability, solar and wind renewable energy resources, as well as levelised cost of hydrogen production and other key indicators such as social circumstances policy framework, and export, transport and energy regulations.

Uptake will enable the region to participate in the global Just Energy Transition to a green economy along the entire value chain of hydrogen production, without leaving anyone behind.

Leading participants are Sasscal executive director Dr Jane Olwoch of Namibia and Dr Solomon Agbo, the coordinator of the H2Atlas Africa at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, of Germany.

National launches are planned in the second half of this year on what are regarded as key elements about the potential of regional green hydrogen development for policy makers, investors, researchers and potential funders.

The atlas, which can contribute to the development of national and regional roadmaps and strategies for enabling green hydrogen-based economies in sub-Saharan Africa, is seen as having great relevance for Germany, Africa and the world, with the project results providing information that enterprises can leverage for sustainable development.

The atlas project supports climate adaptation and mitigation programmes by providing data that can be used for green energy production.

More succinct licence processes are needed to attract exploration investment in South Africa, Pearl Gray Equity and Research managing partner Steve Booyens said on Friday.

“There are loads of investors in North America, London and the European Union that want to invest, but they're afraid of delay costs, opportunity costs and poor governance,” said Booyens, who spoke to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Seen as being essential is the speeding up of processes and the putting in place of an industry due diligence standard that is respected by foreign investors, “because that's where you need to get your capital from at the end of the day”.

Better processes in obtaining permits and licence awards are “a must have”, in the view of Pearl Gray Equity and Research, which provides investors with research required to participate in junior resource mining, which is currently under the spotlight globally.

In North America, there are exchange traded funds that specifically invest in small-scale lithium or small-scale gold and they're flourishing, but it's because the necessary processes, the basics, are in place.

Mining Weekly: What must be done to ensure that exploration emerges strongly?

Booyens: The processes must be speeded up. A venture capital stage business doesn't have the luxury to go and take two or three years out of the labour force.

Why is it that the Toronto Stock Exchange has 1 600 small resource companies, Sydney 600 small resource companies and the JSE has only a dozen or so. Surely, if we followed Canada’s flow-through model, we’d be able to have many more small resource companies here?

That's where the thin trading problem is a big issue. It's all good and well saying we want you to follow the model of the Canadians and Australians, but that's not a uniform solution. We first of all need to look at South Africa’s infrastructure. The JSE’s not a liquid market and South Africa is not a transparent exploration market. North American markets are transparent, and they are liquid, as is the Australian market, so we've really got to find our own solutions. When you speak of flow-throughs, we need to form partnerships with foreign exchange traded funds, for instance. You've got exploration exchange traded funds abroad that would invest in, let's say, gold exploration companies, but what they require is real transparency from the companies they have in the exchange traded fund, otherwise, there's no value-add for them. Again, speaking as a non-lawyer, it all starts with the basic process. How can we get processes quicker? How can we get proper infrastructure in place with regard to transparency?

What needs to be done to ensure that listings on the small end of the JSE are successful?

The first issue for the JSE is that it is very thinly traded, so it's an illiquid market. If we look outside of the top 100 listed entities, you've really got a lack of exposure for companies. It's one thing saying that you want exploration companies to list. It's another thing assuring external investors, especially outside of South Africa, that these companies have proper prospectuses, that these companies are going to be able to really sustain within a good governance system, because those are issues that we are faced with at the moment in South Africa.

HIGH-VOLUME TRADING NEEDED

Booyens holds the view that until high-volume trading and high liquidity return to the exchange, companies outside of the top 100 are better served by running as private companies.

“The reason I say they'd be better served as private companies is that if you're a thinly traded company that has spent quite a lot of money on listing and a bit of money on your road show, I believe that those funds can be better spent on maybe getting the services of a geologist that you need, or maybe getting that environmental licence that you need, maybe doing your own roadshow.

“Moreover, I'd say that if you go and look at the low market cap...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses Anglo American's “next phase of delivery”; the JSE's hope to attract junior mining and exploration companies to list.; and Sibanye-Stillwater’s 89 MW wind energy project.

Fruitful discussions are taking place on flow-through shares to incentivise junior mining and exploration, Minerals Council South Africa’s Junior and Emerging Miners Desk head Grant Mitchell said on Friday.

In response to Mining Weekly, Mitchell said the Minerals Council was doing a lot of work to facilitate engagements between the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and its junior, emerging and exploration members and associations.

This follows JSE origination and deals head Samuel Mokorosi telling Mining Weekly on Monday the JSE was going all out to attract junior mining and exploration companies, making it easier for companies to get on to the exchange and to remain on the exchange, while ensuring that investor protections were of the highest calibre.

Mokorosi is encouraged by the government's one-year review of its exploration strategy and its reference to the flow-through shares concept, the impending cadastral system and clarity on triple black economic empowerment to reinvigorate small-cap listings.

Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe has set a target for South Africa to attract 3% to 5% of global exploration dollars within the next five years. Without an efficient tax incentive system and cadastral in place this will not be possible, the Minerals Council noted in an October 2020 fact sheet.

“In the Toronto Stock market, they’ve got 1 600 listed junior resource companies. On Sydney, they’ve got about 600 and on the JSE it’s about 12. Why the difference? Is it because we are wholly unattractive as a mining and listing destination? No, none of those factors.

“The factors are the Canadians have got a set of specific incentives that encourage the flow-through of venture capital funding from people from a tax perspective to invest in junior resource mining and their listing requirements are generally fairly small and they raise capital and they go and find deposits. They become a hub and they become very specialised at doing it,” outgoing Minerals Council CEO Roger Baxter said in response to Mining Weekly at this week’s post-annual general meeting media briefing.

“But even more recently announced is a $4-billion extra subsidy that Canada will provide for people looking for critical minerals, as an example,” said Baxter.

Mokorosi, encouraged by the appetite around battery-related minerals and renewable energy inputs, sees South Africa as being well placed at the right time for the green revolution that is sweeping the world.

“It’s giving me some comfort that we're seeing both private sector and government look to taking advantage of these developments,” Mokorosi added.

But South Africa’s fiscal framework still does not have the same incentives around encouraging junior resource companies to set up in South Africa or look for capital in South Africa.

“The other critical reason to bear in mind is that Canada has a well-established, well-entrenched venture capital mindset, as does Australia. In South Africa, our investment community are generally fairly conservative and favour big mutual funds. People are not going to invest R100 if they are going to lose their cotton socks in doing so, especially if their return rate is in a liquidated company.

“In South Africa, the return on a liquidated company is about 20c in the rand, whereas in a country like Canada, their liquidation and business rescue rules are quite different so you get a much higher rate of return if you go into a failed company, even if it’s a junior resource company, which is venture capital-funded.

“There are two things we need to do. First of all, fix the domestic requirements around what you need to lodge a junior company exploration permit, it must be much shorter, like 20 to 40 days. It must be on a transparent mineral cadastral system because these companies have a business model where the CEO, chief geologist and chief bottlewasher are the same person.

“They raise capital using the flow-through shares through thestock exchanges that they find t...

Diversified mining and marketing company Anglo American has announced several changes to its senior management team and organisation to lead what it describes as its “next phase of delivery”.

The London- and Johannesburg-listed Anglo, headed by CEO Duncan Wanblad, which reorganising how it manages its production businesses as well as the functional expertise that supports these businesses, has been refreshing its executive team over the last 12 months.

In February, Al Cook joined as CEO of De Beers. In May, Alison Atkinson took up her role as projects and development director, and Monique Carter has joined as people and organisation director.

Helena Nonka will direct a combined strategy and sustainability team and Richard Price a combined legal and corporate affairs team.

Stephen Pearce will continue to lead the finance team across the group but has indicated his intention to retire during this year, having served as finance director since early 2017. The process to appoint his successor is under way.

Anglo’s production businesses will be consolidated into two regions – Africa and Australia, and the Americas.

The regional director, Africa and Australia, is South Africa’s Themba Mkhwanazi, currently the Bulk Commodities CEO, with Ruben Fernandes the regional director of the Americas.

Anglo produces platinum group metals and iron-ore in South Africa and steelmaking coal in Australia. In Brazil, it produces iron-ore and nickel, and in Chile and Peru, copper. Under development is the crop nutrients business in the UK.

Anglo stated in a release to Mining Weekly that Mkhwanazi, who will be based in South Africa, and Fernandes, who will be based in Brazil, will be accountable for safe and responsible operations, optimising current performance, future options and commercial value, in line with the group’s strategy, and will work to ensure effective functional support and service delivery to their operations in each country,

The CEO of crop nutrients is Tom McCulley and the CEO of marketing is Peter Whitcutt.

Pearce, Carter and technical and operations director Matt Daley will together support the governance and strategic delivery of the group and the performance of the production businesses.

Anik Michaud, who has been instrumental over 15 years in shaping the Anglo brand, sustainability and thought leadership as critical underpins to employee and stakeholder trust, has decided that the time is right for her to develop the next phase of her career outside of Anglo, while Didier Charreton has decided to retire after almost eight years of transforming the people strategy, most notably in talent development and in creating a more inclusive and diverse workplace for all employees.

South Africa’s Nolitha Fakude, who will continue as the chairperson of Anglo’s management board in this country, will lead a number of special projects in the national interest, while also advising Wanblad and supporting Mkhwanazi in his new regional role.

“The fundamental demand outlook for responsibly sourced metals and minerals is ever more compelling,” said Wanblad, who believes that Anglo is well positioned to produce and grow into the two major demand trends of economic decarbonisation and the needs of a growing and urbanising global population – from homes and electronics to food and luxuries.

“The changes we have announced today create the senior team and organisational structure that I believe will lead us to deliver our full potential,” Wanblad added.

The changes take effect from July 1, when Anglo’s executive leadership team will be Wanblad, Pearce, Cook, Atkinson, Nonka, Daley, Carter, Whitcutt, Price, Mkhwanazi, Fernandes, and McCulley.