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South Africa’s geological prospectivity is fantastic with only 15% of the country’s surface area having been mapped at a high resolution of 50 000 to 1 geophysical level.

Moreover, the world of geology has changed a lot in the last 20 years.

“The people that find the deposits these days are the mathematicians and statisticians who sit in little offices looking at the geological abnormalities using algorithms to do so, and then send the geologists to go and find the deposit,” Minerals Council South Africa CEO Roger Baxter told the Joburg Indaba on Wednesday.

That compared with 20 years ago when it was typically hands-on geologist type work.

Baxter displayed slides that highlighted South Africa’s potential geological opportunities in chrome, platinum group metals, gold, iron-ore, titanium minerals and diamonds.

On mining in South Africa being a sunset or sunrise industry, he said: “We’ve got an incredibly world-class mining sector, business capability that is hard to deny at a global level, and a committed and patriotic business sector, which really matters for this country, and wants to see South Africa succeed.

“We’ve got significant research, development and innovation capacity, a pipeline of skills from world-class educational facilities and in some areas great infrastructure but we’re just not getting our service levels on that infrastructure that we need,” Baxter said.

Having recently returned from Australia, he noted that mining engineering was no longer offered at any of the universities in Queensland, compared with South Africa, which had a surplus of mining engineers coming out of universities. But these could not be employed because the country was failing to grow the mining sector at a sufficiently fast pace – “and we should be doing something about that”.

Direct engagement with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) on how South Africa can have a world-class cadastral system and exploration plan in place.

“We are making progress. It has been a little bit frustrating from the point of view of the pace of the progress, but it’s not due to a lack of effort,” Baxter said, adding in response to a question that he had had a discussion on the setting up of a cadastre with the Mineral Resources Minister’s special advisor, the Deputy Minister and the Deputy DG in charge of policy at the Africa Downunder conference in Perth.

“It’s an interesting place to engage your government and there was agreement that we need to get the cadastre sorted out quickly. The Minerals Council’s position remains very clear – buy a new off-the-shelf cadastral system. We’ve got two world-class cadastral system companies that operate in South Africa. You don’t have to develop a brand new bespoke system that will take you three years to get operational

“We’re talking about an off-the-shelf system will probably take six months to iron out a few of the edges and get working and you want a transparent cadastral system that gives you all the preconverted geological information.

“You also want a licensing system linked to that cadastral system that works on much shorter timelines. Many mining companies tell me they applied two years ago for a prospecting right and I’m still waiting, or they find that the application lost or given to someone else.

“When you’ve got full transparency, you can make a lot of progress. But at least the DMRE has admitted that Samrad is dysfunctional. Can we see an off-the-shelf system being procured? That’s something we’re really pushing for from our side,” said Baxter

As reported by Mining Weekly last month, while South Africa does not have such a commercially available cadastre, fellow African countries that are already thriving on one include Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique and Zambia.

Worse still is that the Proudly South African supplier of the system to these countries has opted to walk away from the DMRE’s ten...

The biggest opportunity mining has as an industry is to help the world to transition to a net-zero carbon world, Minerals Council South Africa president Nolitha Fakude said on Wednesday.

Fakude, who is also chairperson of Anglo American's management board in South Africa, highlighted this during her keynote address at the Joburg Indaba, covered by Mining Weekly.

“With climate change and the global energy transition well underway, it is many of the metals and minerals which we produce right here in South Africa that are required to support this transition – and our abundant sun and wind resources give us yet another wonderful opportunity to produce and benefit from renewable energy sources,” said Fakude.

Minerals Council members have a pipeline of 6.5 GW of sustainable energy projects worth more than R100-billion.

“But the question we hear others ask of us remains: will South Africa’s policymakers, and indeed the mining industry, organise themselves enough and in time to really benefit from this enviable position?

“If we do, then we truly have the power and potential to be the lighthouse industry for South Africa.

“Not only would we catalyse the much-needed growth and socio-economic development that our country so desperately needs, but we would also create a pathway and model for other industries to follow suit while helping South Africa’s own decarbonisation journey as we, together, fight global climate change.

“This requires a shift in our thinking and ways of working together, away from who we are to what we must become,” she said.

“Many factors are impacting our ability and confidence to invest, which include complex regulatory framework. Policy support, regulatory certainty on energy production and efficient robust state-owned institutions are all essential – and so too is the rule of law, security, and the rooting out of corruption.

“It is critical for the government to allow the private sector to participate fully in revitalising the potential of key infrastructure in water, energy, and logistics. Partnerships between the public and private sectors are essential to unlock our full mineral potential to create jobs, wealth, and opportunities for future generations.

“Within our locus of control, however, is also the willingness to truly collaborate – bringing together labour, government, business, communities, and civil society to enhance our confidence, support the country's investment prospects and secure a just energy transition,” said Fakude.

In this regard, Anglo American and EDF Renewables announced a partnership agreement incorporating joint venture company, Envusa Energy, that will develop a regional renewable energy ecosystem in South Africa.

The agreement includes the launch of 600 MW of wind and solar projects as a first step towards generating 3 GW to 5 GW of renewable energy.

“The ecosystem also illustrates how mining can serve as a springboard for unlocking national growth and development potential. Across our industry, many other companies are on the same path – signalling a commitment to not only making the energy transition real but just and inclusive as well.

“The energy transition is not going to be sustainable or just if we do not invest in advancing the economic inclusion of women and young people.

“I believe that as the energy transition gains pace, we as an industry can play a leading role in building a more collaborative and inclusive economy – one that places people and the principle of shared prosperity at the heart of development,” said Fakude.

South Africa’s mining sector will be required to make major investments into alternative and renewable energy sources and energy planning to address the dual challenges of decarbonisation and reliable power supply, PwC said on Tuesday when it launched its SA Mine report, which highlights mining’s sterling 2022 financial performance of distributing R190-billion to shareholders, growing capital expenditure by 36% and paying 14% more in taxes.

The statistic that less than 5% of the total energy consumed by South African mining in 2020 was sourced from renewables highlighted the big increase in green energy investment still needed. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

An increased cross-industry capital expenditure commitment boded well for the overall economy, communities, suppliers, labourers and government and was expected to contribute to increased tax and job opportunities.

Growing demand for commodities in the sector saw record rand prices for the platinum group metals basket, iron-ore, and coal, while most other South African commodity prices remained at relatively high rand levels.

Mining companies had found themselves in a very strong financial position, with debt largely paid and returns to shareholders at record rand levels in many instances. The fiscus had benefited to the extent that it could support ongoing socioeconomic grants during the pandemic.

However, with higher costs impacted by lower production levels, near-term margin erosion would impact 2023 performance, PwC cautioned.

CLEANER, GREENER MINING

With issues of decarbonising as well as sustainable and reliable power supply directly connected to 81.4% of South Africa’s 2021 electricity being coal-fired, investment was required to lower mining’s high volume of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Shown as basic resources on the above graphic, mining in 2020 contributed 7 t out of every 10 t of CO2 emitted amid South Africa committed to decarbonising in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.

Moreover, Minerals Council South Africa had further endorsed this commitment by setting a net-zero-by-2050 target.

The potential to use green electrons to produce green molecules, such as green hydrogen, as is being done by Anglo American at its Mogalakwena platinum group metals mine in Limpopo, also needed highlighting.

Investing in sustainable energy would also directly connect companies beneficially to environmental social and governance opportunities, including contributing to the just energy transition through upskilling and community support.

Moreover, remaining globally competitive required the inclusion of sustainability and circularity across the entire value chain.

Global constraints in supply of green commodities would mean increased prices and investment in supply to enable an aligned just transition pace was needed.

“In South Africa, we stand to benefit from the demand growth, but whether South Africa and other resource-rich countries will benefit to the full extent will depend on their ability to address bottlenecks in supply and mine-to-market infrastructure,” PwC Africa Energy, Utilities and Resources Leader Andries Rossouw stated.

“There is an obvious need to invest in the right skills, infrastructure, energy, and water, and in general, creating an enabling environment for exploration, mine development, production, and sales.

“Realising the full potential benefit of our resources and creating long-term sustainable outcomes will depend on our ability to mine cost competitively and to integrate various value chains profitably,” Rossouw added.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT, RECOVERY FROM COVID

The South African economy was only 1.4% year-on-year larger in the first half of 2022 as a combination of local and international factors held back the pace of economic growth. These included the international economic and geopolitical fallout of the Ukraine conflict, Covid lockdowns in China, floods in KwaZulu-Natal, and elect...

Diversified mining company Anglo American, in partnership with EDF Renewables, on Tuesday announced an agreement to form a new jointly owned company, Envusa Energy, to develop a regional renewable energy ecosystem in South Africa.

The energy ecosystem, which is expected to catalyse economic activity in South Africa's renewable energy sector, supporting the country's broader just energy transition, follows the two companies signing a memorandum of understanding in March to explore the ecosystem's development, which is designed to meet Anglo's operational power requirements in South Africa and support the resilience of the local electricity supply systems and the wider decarbonisation of energy in the country.

As part of the agreement, Envusa Energy is launching a mature pipeline of more than 600 MW of wind and solar projects in South Africa – a major first step towards the development of an ecosystem that is expected to generate 3 GW to 5 GW of renewable energy by 2030.

This first phase of Envusa Energy's renewables projects is expected to be fully funded – including by attracting debt financing that is typical for high quality energy infrastructure projects – and ready for construction to begin in 2023.

Envusa Energy is expected to supply Anglo with a blend of renewable energy generated on its mine sites and renewable energy transmitted via the national grid. This energy portfolio approach will aggregate energy from geographically dispersed renewable generating assets and allocate this energy optimally to meet the load demand for Anglo's sites.

"I'm delighted to confirm our groundbreaking partnership with EDF Renewables to form Envusa Energy. This is a significant milestone in Anglo American's global decarbonisation journey and another step forwards for South Africa's clean energy future,” Nolitha Fakude, the chairperson of Anglo American's management board in South Africa, said in a release to Mining Weekly.

“We’re making great strides towards our 2040 target of carbon neutral operations, while contributing to South Africa's just energy transition through our responsible approach. We believe that the energy transition presents a fresh opportunity for South Africa and the rest of the region to build a clean and inclusive energy ecosystem that can create significant new economic opportunities. I am very encouraged by our progress – affirming Anglo American's commitment to South Africa's next phase of development towards a low-carbon future," Fakude added.

Tristan de Drouas, CEO at EDF Renewables in South Africa, expressed his company’s pleasure at being part of what he described as a very innovative venture.

“We look forward to bringing our global expertise in renewable energy infrastructure development, design and delivery to Envusa Energy.

“This partnership with Anglo American confirms our long-term perspectives in the country: this 600 MW first tranche of projects will be added to the almost 1 GW that EDF Renewables will be building or operating in the country by 2023 – including 420 MW of wind projects in REIPPPP Bid Window 5, whose PPAs were signed with Eskom and the DMRE on 22 September 2022.

“Together, these projects further EDF Group's CAP 2030 strategy, which aims to double our net renewable installed energy capacity worldwide (hydropower included) from 28 GW in 2015 to 60 GW by 2030," De Drouas added.

The roll-out of the regional renewable energy ecosystem will also serve as a clean energy source for the production of green hydrogen for Anglo's nuGenTM zero emission haulage solution – a planned fleet of hydrogen-powered ultra-class mine haul trucks – significantly reducing on-site diesel emissions towards a carbon neutral future while also supporting the development of South Africa's Hydrogen Valley.

Up to 1 350 t of green hydrogen can now be generated a year from renewable solar and wind power in the Wunsiedel Energy Park, in Germany.

“This is another example of platinum-based production of green hydrogen in Europe that will assist both the replacement of imported natural gas and the earlier use of heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles.

“It highlights platinum’s crucial role in global decarbonisation that has been significantly boosted by energy security concerns in Europe and decarbonisation funding in the US, as detailed in the recent Inflation Reduction Act,” World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) stated in response to Mining Weekly. Platinum group metals (PGMs) mining companies that make up the membership of the WPIC are Anglo American Platinum, impala Platinum, Northam Platinum, Royal Bafokeng Platinum, Sedibelo Platinum and Tharisa.

The green hydrogen in Wunsiedel is generated by an electrolyser – with a total capacity of 8.75 MW – from Siemens Energy’s “Silyzer 300”, which is based on platinum-using proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology. Talks regarding the expansion of the plant’s capacity to 17.5 MW are already under way and by 2030, the European Union is set to be generating ten-million tons of green hydrogen a year.

A plus for Southern Africa’s PGMs miners is the description of the PEM technology deployed as being optimally suited for operation with renewable energies.

Mining Weekly can report that Southern Africa is itself seen as being an ideal generator of green hydrogen, owing to its superior sun, prime wind, abundant land, hydrogen skills, PGMs, and the need to reduce the regions heavy dependence of fossil fuel power to prevent goods being exported being subjected to punitive climate tariffs in the years ahead.

Already doing its rounds at the Mogalakwena PGMs mine in Limpopo is Anglo American Platinum’s huge green hydrogen haul truck. Plans are also being made to extend green hydrogen haulage to all other Anglo American mines.

In Wunsiedel, the green hydrogen will be used primarily in the region’s industrial and commercial enterprises, as well as in road transport.

With this amount of hydrogen, 400 40-ton hydrogen-powered trucks could – assuming a regional distance of 150 km a day – drive for an entire year without emitting any carbon dioxide (CO2).

By using the hydrogen generated in Wunsiedel and the related replacement of fossil fuels, annual CO2 emissions can be cut by up to 13 500 t.

As general contractor, Siemens’ Smart Infrastructure is responsible for building the hydrogen plant as well as creating an intelligently monitored and controlled electricity grid.

The regional business community – encompassing everything from the glass and ceramics industry to transport companies, automotive suppliers and the neighbouring sawmill – is the green hydrogen user base.

The hydrogen will be distributed by truck trailers on a decentralised basis to end customers mainly within a radius of 150 km to 200 km, covering Northern Bavaria, Thuringia, Southern Saxony and Western Bohemia.

In addition, the regional fleet of commercial vehicles are earmarked for decarbonisation following the construction of a green hydrogen filling station at the Wunsiedel Energy Park, which is scheduled for completion next year.

A paper just published by Anita H.Reksten, Magnus S.Thomassen, Steffen Møller-Holst and Kyrre Sundseth state that the deployment of intermittent renewable energy in recent years, and the subsequent increased need for flexibility for the electric power system, has led to an increased focus on green hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources.

They describe hydrogen as not only being a flexible energy carrier with the potential application in many sectors, but also lending itself to long-term storage. In this way, it provides a balance for fluctuating renewable energy sources. Uses include fuel for zero-emission transport, especially in heavy-duty transportation and in the maritime sector, in reduction p...

Following the September 11 collapse of the Jagersfontein tailings dam, in the Free State, in South Africa, mining company CEOs, government Ministers from major mining nations and other key stakeholders have been invited by institutional investors to a Global Tailings Summit to be held in London, in the UK, on January 24, four years to the day since the Brumadinho tailings dam collapsed in Brazil, causing extensive damage to property, the environment and loss of life.

“This is another dam collapse that is the legacy of having treated mining waste as an externality. The results are the same as lives are lost, houses destroyed, unknown environmental damage and communities continuing to live with unidentified risks in the shadow of tailings facilities.

“If the mining industry is to play the role society needs it to in the low carbon transition then it has a vested interest in ensuring a solution is found to address this legacy,” Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative chair and Church of England Pensions Board chief responsible investment officer Adam Matthews said on September 30.

The summit is being convened by global investor initiative the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative, which is led by the Church of England Pensions Board and the Swedish Public Pension Funds. It is supported by 110 investors with more than $23-trillion in assets under management. The initiative has been instrumental in driving tailings safety concerns across the mining industry.

The summit will consider proposals that are being development for a global tailings repository to include locations and ownership details for all tailings facilities, whether under public or private control.

“Just after Brumadinho, when we convened a huge number of investors together with companies and global experts, it was astonishing to find that there is no global record of tailings facilities. We didn't know which companies had tailings facilities and what level of risk that each facility had. None of that information was there,” Matthews told Mining Weekly.

He explained that the first challenge was to establish a database of all tailings facilities. While many companies, particularly publicly listed companies, were more transparent about their tailings facilities, a large number of facilities owned by private entities remained unaccounted for, obscured by the changing of hands over time and, in some cases, poor record keeping.

To uncover all of the tailings facilities that have not been made known through reporting and the collection of documentation, the use of satellite imagery has been explored as a viable way of locating them owing to their uniquely identifiable signature.

The second challenge, after compiling a comprehensive repository, was then to establish which of those facilities were at risk so that they could be monitored and/or rehabilitated, if needed.

Therefore, a global monitoring system is proposed, which will use satellites, as well as, where available, ground sensors to independently monitor the highest-risk dams, whether publicly or privately owned.

“Where there's clear ownership structures, you can address those entities, but where there isn’t clear ownership, or where there are facilities that are in countries where there are challenges in terms of being able to address a high risk tailings facility, it becomes more complicated to deal with,” Matthews explained.

For this third challenge, the idea of a global tailings legacy rehabilitation fund has been put on the table to act as a dedicated global fund that can be deployed to address the highest risk and most dangerous orphaned tailings dams where clear owner responsibilities cannot be clearly identified or where there is not sufficient funding to do address the problem.

“Creating a rehabilitation fund is the kind of intervention that would enable us to address the highest risk facilities. Where that will be based and where that funding comes from are the issues to be discussed in t...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer talks to us about Council for Geoscience wanting South Africans to rally around exploration as the country’s ‘Big, Hairy, Audacious goal’; the JSE’s new product that is appropriate for fund-raising by junior mining companies; and the world’s first offshore green hydrogen production demonstrator platform which has been positioned offshore of France.

The key objective of transparency in applying for prospecting rights and mining rights – and openly managing them – can be enabled by a commercially available cadastre system.

While South Africa does not have such a cadastre, fellow African countries that are already thriving on it include Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique and Zambia.

Worse still is that the Proudly South African supplier of the system to these countries has opted to walk away from the South African tender invitation – because it is unable to understand the drivers of the terms of reference that South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has set.

A cadastre is ideally an end-to-end solution that not only awards exploration and mining licences but also monitors regulation, tax and royalty collection, and revenue distribution.

“Minerals Council South Africa is absolutely adamant that we want a commercially available cadastre system in South Africa, and that message is conveyed to both the DMRE and the Council for Geoscience on an ongoing basis,” Minerals Council South Africa’s Junior and Emerging Miners Desk head Grant Mitchell stated during a junior mining and exploration webinar covered by Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“We really feel that if we are going to unlock the exploration potential of this country, we need a mining cadastre, along with a flow-through share tax system,” added Mitchell.

At the same webinar, Council for Geoscience CEO Mosa Mabuza urged all South Africans to rally around exploration as this country’s Big Hairy Audacious Goal, owing to it being essential for the future of mining, a major national strength.

The supplier of the cadastre, Trimble, began its work in Africa as Spatial Dimension nearly two decades ago.

“Our first mining cadastre project was in 2003 in Mozambique, a World Bank-funded project and we've got well over 20 customers now using our system to manage their mineral rights in their country,” Trimble Natural Resources MD Bill Feast outlined.

Through its efforts, Cameroon has an online cadastre system and one can see who has applied where in Côte d'Ivoire.

The DRC has been using its system for well over a decade, and one can do a desktop search on where people are applying in Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Libya and Zambia.

One can find these portals on its website, where one can see how easy it is to find out the landholding in any of these countries.

“I'm sure most of you know how difficult it is at the DMRE to find out who owns what and where,” said Feast.

On the reason for walking away from the DMRE’s cadastre tender put out over a year ago, he said: “We didn't understand the drivers behind their terms of reference.”

Trimble is now a few weeks away from going live with the Botswana’s new cadastre system, while the DMRE is still, as far as he understands, debating.

“Probably by the end of October, there's going to be a new Botswana portal that you're going to be able to log-in to. It's got multi-factor authentication so you'll be able to log-in securely,” he told webinar attendees.

“Once you enter the system, you'll be presented with a dashboard of all the mineral rights allocated to you or the company that you represent.

“You'll be able to monitor your obligations, make online payments, upload your work reports, upload your production statistics, see whatever the obligations for that particular exploration or mining right are,” said Feast, who provided screenshots of how to apply for a new licence ­– yes, by simply clicking on ‘apply’.

In this case, a prospecting licence for uranium was the outcome.

He then uploaded a shapefile of the area applied for. The tenure could be seen in the background, as well as protected areas and exclusion zones.

He digitised a square and one could see that the area applied for overlapped with four restricted areas. He was...

Platinum group metals (PGMs) mining and marketing company Anglo American Platinum has launched a new employee share ownership plan (Esop), which it envisages will be implemented in the fourth quarter of this year.

The Esop involves employees receiving Anglo Platinum listed shares to the value of R8 000 each a year, in addition to participation in the evergreen ownership of 2% of Rustenburg Platinum Mines, Anglo Platinum’s operating subsidiary.

The estimated total value of the employee share allocations over the life of the scheme is R1.8-billion and the estimated day-one value of the 2% evergreen shares, based on the 30-day volume-weighted average price of the shares as at September 23, is R6.5-billion.

The Esop will allow permanent employees, excluding executives and other management who already participate in share incentive schemes, to receive shares, thereby benefitting directly from the company’s performance across its operations in South Africa and Zimbabwe, both through dividends declared and share price appreciation. This is the third Esop for the organisation and will replace the second Esop, which expires this month when the final 2020 allocation vests.

Each tranche of the of R8 000 in shares will vest three years after allocation. These shares are either allocated from treasury shares or purchased in the market on an annual basis for the purposes of allocating to qualifying employees under the Esop, at a cash outflow of R170-million a year. Once shares have vested, employees will have the option to sell or retain their shares.

As part of the evergreen component, Esop trusts will be established in which an aggregate 2% of the shares of Rustenburg Platinum Mines, and held into perpetuity on behalf of qualifying employees.

The purchase of these shares will be funded by the company, and qualifying employees will be entitled to receive dividends as and when Rustenburg Platinum Mines declares a dividend.

“Guided by our purpose, to re-imagine mining to improve people’s lives, we are committed to driving shared value creation for all our stakeholders,” Anglo Platinum executive head of human resources Virginia Tyobeka stated in a media release to Mining Weekly.

“Every colleague in our business plays a crucial role in mining and processing the metals that enable so much of our everyday lives and a cleaner future for our planet.

“As an organisation, we are deeply committed to ensuring that our colleagues can benefit from sustainable livelihoods and are rewarded for the hard work that they do. We will be working hard to ensure that everyone understands how the new scheme will be implemented, and that they are empowered to manage their interest in our company sustainably,” Tyobeka added.

Anglo Platinum, a producer of PGMs listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange, has mining, smelting and refining operations South Africa, and the Unki platinum mine and smelter in Zimbabwe.

South Africa’s critical minerals potential is being highlighted in an increasingly promising manner by Orion Minerals, the Sydney- and Johannesburg-listed company that is showing the way in the minerals-endowed Northern Cape.

Orion, headed by its Boksburg-born CEO Errol Smart, is poised to bestow on South Africa an integrated and far-reaching value chain of future facing metals production in a province which is crying out for more exploration in the new era of enhanced prospecting technology.

With their surfaces barely scratched, Orion's properties have already brought back to the fore the province’s significant historical mining of copper, zinc, lead, gold, silver and tungsten, with notable diggings of lithium, rare earth elements and uranium, along with virgin deposits of nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group elements (PGEs) being identified.

The company’s Annual Report 2022 just released shows that the approach being adopted by Orion is one of integration from exploration to market, with the company becoming a new-generation South African mining company focused on the development of advanced green metals projects, local refining of battery metals, and the use of green renewable energy from the Northern Cape's bright sunshine.

Orion’s core asset portfolio now includes mining and prospecting rights on the:

Prieska copper/zinc project, the flagship development, which is permitted and ‘shovel-ready’;

Okiep copper project, with potential for near-term production restart; and

Jacomynspan project, a nickel, copper, cobalt, PGEs, and gold pursuit, with potential to produce advanced battery precursor products.

For the Prieska project, funding of $87-million is being negotiated with Triple Flag to support an early production scenario, which includes potentially bringing forward concentrate production and phased dewatering.

For the Okiep copper project, South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation has signalled its intention to partner Orion in the development of the New Okiep Mining Company subsidiary and the Okiep project.

Encouraging results have been received from a successful maiden drilling programme on the Koperberg – Carolusberg line of intrusives, confirming historically reported results and proving shallow mineralisation.

Sixteen late-time electromagnetic (EM) targets have been identified from a SkyTEM™ airborne EM survey completed over the Okiep project, covering 26 historical copper mines and 150 known copper prospects.

A new copper-nickel discovery has been made at the Nous prospect from the first drill-hole completed to test a SkyTEM™ anomaly, with coincident magnetic and EM anomalies.

Targets are now being plotted for follow-up drilling.

At Jacomynspan, the battery refining agreement – which is poised to bring sought-after value addition to the Northern Cape mining business – has been signed with Stratega Metals, embracing the development of a specialist refining facility, using Strategi’s licensed refining know-how. Presenting a major beneficiation value uplift is metal vapour refining technology that is used to produce battery precursor metal and nano powders used in the electronics industry.

Negotiations to acquire the remaining interests in the Jacomynspan nickel/copper/PGEs project were extended to provide additional time for the owners to discuss a potential expanded and revised transaction, whereby additional prospective Southern African nickel projects may be combined with Jacomynspan.

The Prieska project, 270 km southwest of Kimberley, is in a district that has access to well-established local and regional infrastructure. Prieska’s development will be uplifted by the Okiep project, with the two projects positioned to turn Orion into a diversified base metals miner.

Orion’s main activity is exploration, evaluation and development of base metals in the Areachap Belt, and as such it does not have a source of income, and is reliant on debt and equity raisings to fund its activities.

During the reporting...