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Magnet metals and rare earths miner Pensana has completed the front-end engineering design (FEED) for its UK-based Saltend rare earths production facility and its Angola-based Longonjo mine, reducing the capital expenditure (capex) costs of the projects and improving the operating profitability of both.

A comprehensive value engineering and enhancement programme is well advanced and is expected to be reported in April, which is intended to result in a further reduction in the capital costs.

Saltend is being designed as the UK’s first rare earths processing facility and will produce 12 500 t/y of separated rare earth oxide, of which 4 500 t/y will be magnet metal rare earths – neodymium and praseodymium oxides, equivalent to about 5% of the projected world demand.

Working alongside Wood Group’s Perth (Australia), Reading (UK) and Johannesburg (South Africa) offices, project management and engineering company Paradigm Project Management (PPM) and Professional Cost Consultants (PCC) have managed to reduce the capital required to establish the projects.

As such, the estimated capex for the projects has been reduced from $525-million to $494-million, with Saltend requiring $195-million and Longonjo needing $299-million.

Although the cost of the Saltend refinery is set to increase from $190-million to $195-million, the mixed rare earth sulphate refinery cost is set to decrease from $152-million to $127-million; while the Longonjo concentrator will decrease from $134-million to $123-million.

This leaves both the Longonjo mine and infrastructure costs, and the operational expenditures, unchanged at $49-million and $15/kg, respectively.

This adjustment will result in Pensana producing higher revenues, increasing from the December 2021 estimate of $648-million a year for the first five years, to $705-million a year for the first five years.

In turn, this will result in Pensana’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation increasing from a previous estimate of $413-million a year for the first five years, to $459-million a year for the same time period.

In addition, the adjustment increases the project’s net present value from $2.1-billion to $2.4-billion, and its internal rate of return from 50% to 61%.

Considering these metrics, Pensana plans a payback period improvement on its investment from 2.3 years to 2.1 years.

Pensana chairperson Paul Atherley says that reducing its capital and operating costs is a significant achievement by the technical team led by CEO Tim George, especially considering the inflationary pressures and supply chain constraints affecting projects globally.

“The lower capital and strong operating margins will make the project attractive to our Financiers and are expected to lower the overall cost of finance,” says Atherley.

Global supply chain constraints and inflationary pressures, which could have impacted both the Saltend and Longonjo projects, have been largely mitigated by the detailed enhancement and value engineering processes.

Consequently, specific workstreams involving capital and operation cost savings are currently under way, including using spent acid regeneration to increase the recycling efficiency of the sulphuric acid plant.

This will be integrated with off-gas from the calcining of concentrate at Longonjo, which is an important aspect of the process and constitutes a significant reduction of the carbon footprint through reduced reagent consumption.

The piloting of a more cost-effective flotation concentrate calcining process offers a vendor alternative post-FEED, which would enable a significantly shorter lead time for fabrication and ease of installation at Longonjo.

In addition, enhancement of Saltend’s civil and earthworks for load-bearing structures is being undertaken alongside the completion of detailed geotechnical investigation, which will shorten the construction period and enable future affordable expansion into downstream activities associated with magnet metal p...

South Africa’s historic metals sector employer organisation on Wednesday urged all the sector’s employer bodies to roll up their sleeves on May 19 and 20 and get their teeth into the Steel Master Plan, which is seen to have promising reindustrialisation elements.

President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted the Steel Master Plan in last month’s State of the Nation Address.

An upbeat Lucio Trentini, in his capacity as the CEO of the nigh-80-year-old Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa), described the challenges faced by the metals and engineering sector as being “quite daunting” and highlighted the amazing resilience that members had displayed in the last 12 to 18 months. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Seifsa has a combined membership of more than 1 200 companies that employ more than 170 000 personnel. Formed in 1943, its members range from giant steelmaking corporations to microenterprises employing fewer than 50 people.

“The message that I want to put out is that this industry stands ready to make its contribution to translating government’s vision of reindustrialising the metals and engineering sector, and to start translating visions, promises and policy into action and deliverables

“What we need is for the government to roll out its promised infrastructure spend, which is absolutely central to the reigniting of industrial capacity in the sector. I can assure you, if we see half of what government has promised, the sector will ignite, move forward and create the much-needed economic growth and consequent jobs and job opportunities that this country so sorely needs. We’re ready, we want to do our bit,” said Trentini in a Zoom interview with Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

The knock-on effects are felt throughout the economy owing to the sector’s role as supplier and customer into the mining, automotive, motor, construction and other manufacturing sub-industries.

“Because of the nature of our economy and its size, the major sectors of our economy are all interrelated, so when one cog in the wheel experiences a stutter, the effects are felt throughout the value chain,” said Trentini.

During the three-week stoppage of the sector last year, more than R300-million in lost wages and more than R600-million a week in lost revenue was shed by the sector – and those are very conservative figures.

“The knock-on effect into mining, construction, automotive component manufacturers, automotive assemblers was felt very deeply,” said the head of the organisation that sets out to foster mutually-beneficial relationships between employers, labour and government in creating a business environment conducive to growth.

When Trentini joined South Africa’s metals and engineering sector from JCI Gold and Uranium Company 30-odd years ago, it employed more than half a-million blue-collar workers. Sadly, it is now down to half that number.

“Jobs are scarce and we need to hold on to the jobs we have and allow the government to create an enabling environment,” said action-orientated Trentini.

He sees the Steel Master Plan, already signed by representatives of business, labour and government, as being an integral part of the new enabling environment that the government is heralding, and urges all relevant organisations to put their shoulder to the plan’s wheel at its upcoming conference on May 19 and 20.

“It’s not going to create any miracles overnight but it’s the first time that government, through Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel, has come to business to ask what it can do together with labour, to address the challenges that we face as a sector,” he said.

Localisation and designation without having to compromise on cost and quality is the plan’s focus.

“We now know that there are going to be massive increases in the price of steel because of what is happening in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the price of steel, which is a major input into all of this industry, is a major issue up...

The appointment of mining stalwart Sipho Nkosi to cut red tape is crucial to encourage new investment and expand existing investment in South Africa, says Menar MD Vuslat Bayoglu, whose private investment company has about R1.5-billion worth of investment being delayed by regulatory processes.

While Nkosi was appointed to reduce government red tape in general, Bayoglu believes that his background and skill would be better used in the mining regulatory space. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“There are huge bottlenecks in mining approval processes, from prospecting rights, where it is relatively easy, to water use licences (WULs) and environmental authorisation, where things get harder,” said Bayoglu in a Zoom interview with Mining Weekly.

“Often, different government entities contradict each other. Some NGOs take advantage of the red tape to block mining investment. They don’t care about the taxes that the state is losing when it delays mining investments, exploit this to their own advantage and to the detriment of the country,” said Bayolu, who pointed to Minerals Council South Africa’s members having R90-billion worth of ready-to-execute projects being stalled by red tape.

“South Africa cannot afford to lose out on the current upswing in the commodity market. It is only during such times that investors have appetite to expand existing operations and develop new mines from scratch.

“If we don’t take advantage of this now by cutting the red tape, we should kiss goodbye to employment creation and the prospect of reducing poverty and inequalities – all of which are the key priorities of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration. The President clearly knows this. We hope various departments will support him,” said Bayoglu.

His second takeway from last month’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) is that reforms are under way in the field of logistics. “Allowing third party access to the rail infrastructure is key to solving the logistics bottlenecks. While Transnet has performed better than many SOE’s over the years, it has experienced challenges lately and this has impacted on mining exports. So, the President’s initiatives, which Transnet has already embraced, are also a welcome development,” Bayoglu added.

His third Sona takeway was the President firmly stating that business is responsible for creating jobs and the government should create an enabling environment.

“I think if he can act on this statement and ensure that government takes decisions quickly, then we can succeed in creating economic opportunities,” he said.

GROWTH STRATEGY DEVELOPMENTS

The company’s latest growth strategy development includes the commencement of mining at Kangra Coal’s Udumo mine in February, marking the beginning of the extension of the life-of-mine (LoM) at Kangra, through the mining of the Kusipongo reserve of around 41.9-million tons, which could extend the LoM by more than 20 years.

Kangra is targeting a production rate of 1.5-million tons a year from the underground mining sections for the duration of the LoM, with 360 000 t/y of anthracite being produced from available opencast areas. Located in Saul Mkhizeville, Mpumalanga, Kangra employs 549 people including contractors. The extension of the LoM of Kangra is described as being critical for local communities that derive employment and business opportunities from the mine.

In addition, negotiations are continuing with stakeholders at Canyon Coal’s fully licensed but yet to be developed Gugulethu colliery, which will create 430 jobs. Through Canyon, some R600-million is being invested in the Phase 1 development of Gugulethu, which is near Hendrina, also in Mpumalanga. The project has an estimated LoM of more than 35 years based on a run-of-mine (RoM) production of about 200 000 t/m from opencast areas and 150 000 t/m from underground sections. Mining will take place through underground and opencast methods. Phase 1, which will entail opencast mining, has a reserve of 14.3-million...

The equivalent of a Koeberg power station is arising in the form of new largely mining-linked private-sector solar power photovoltaic projects across South Africa, according to AmaranthCX director and founder Paul Miller, whose company is working on the second edition of its electronic map of the utility scale power projects in the region, where there has up to now been an absence of particularly non-technical data required for investors, financiers and traders.

“Increasingly, the more recent projects are all coming out with battery storage as well,” said Miller, who was speaking to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

AmaranthCX has effectively produced a Google Earth map of all the Southern African developments, prompted by very strong demand for the data it is compiling, even from people in government.

“It’s because there's no central authority collating or publishing the information,” said Miller.

Although there have been some big programmes announced that do not have specific projects detailed as yet, many projects are going ahead with some already in the construction phase.

“We do a lot of work assisting companies that sell to mines, and we discovered when putting together the addressable market of all mines in Africa that there are, of course, there are no street addresses.

“So, immediately you’re having to geo-locate mines and mining projects, and once you've geo-located something, it's not long before you have a map,” said Miller.

AmaranthCX thus produced a range of maps, particularly during the darker days of Covid lockdown.

“People were very interested in chrome, coal and manganese. But when we surveyed all the buyers of those maps, they often turned out to be traders, rather than suppliers, in other words, people buying commodities rather than people selling things to the mines, and a strong response came back that they needed more information on the power situation,” said Miller.

This resulted in AmaranthCX mapping all the power stations and major substations of the Southern African Power Pool, taking in South Africa and many of its neighbours.

“That turned out to be a somewhat shifting terrain, because in mining, you can make a judgment call on what an advanced project is. In other words, a mine that's likely to be built based on public or historical information on the geological resource, and you can say, okay, well, actually, there’s likely to be a new colliery here or new manganese mine there, and you can add it to the mines so that people who are interested in perhaps buying the commodity or supplying that mine, have a fairly reasonable understanding.

“But when you start mapping power projects, it's quite different. In South Africa, for example, there are hundreds of permitted sites for renewable projects. In other words, there's lots of information online of basic environmental studies that have been done to get permitting for projects,” Miller pointed out.

Those are the projects that compete in the different rounds of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) aimed at bringing additional megawatts onto the country's electricity system through private sector investment in wind, biomass and small hydro, among others.

“Now, if the projects don't win in one of those rounds, they might never be built. So, in South Africa, you can take a view that if a project has been awarded preferred bidder status in one of the REIPPPP rounds, it's quite likely to be built. Not all of them have, but it's quite likely to be built and you can map it.”

But since South Africa’s self-generation embedded power cap was lifted to 100 MW, very positive and widespread development of projects outside of the REIPPPP have arisen rapidly.

Mining Weekly: Is it something of a free for all out there?

Miller: From an information point of view, it is because there's no central authority collating or publishing the information. As we went into mining company results...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer unpacks the need for mining to seize the many obvious lucrative opportunities that are available; Royal Bafokeng Platinum’s renewable energy study on an embedded 30MW solar plant that is close to completion; and Eskom's battery storage system.

Pilanesberg Platinum Mines, a subsidiary of Sedibelo Platinum, has appointed the juwi/Sturdee Energy consortium as preferred bidder to supply renewable energy to the mining operation.

The parties have signed a memorandum of understanding and will now commence negotiations towards a power purchase agreement (PPA), the company stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

The renewable energy programme will take the form of two projects:

a PPA for a combination of solar photovoltaic and wind systems to power the 40 MW mine load via a wheeling arrangement from two separate sites, one in Limpopo and one in the Western Cape. This project will supply 55% to 60% of the mine’s energy needs, and is planned to commence operation in 2024; and

the development and construction of a 35 MW solar plant at or adjacent to the mine for the direct provision of power to meet the mine’s growing energy needs, and is planned to commence operation in 2026.

Pilanesberg Platinum Mine, situated about 60 km northwest of Rustenburg on the western limb of the Bushveld Complex, currently produces about 120 000 oz of platinum group metals a year in concentrate and has recently opened a second surface mine. Plans are under consideration to transition to underground mining to take advantage of higher-grade ores.

Sedibelo expects the renewable energy projects to:

reduce the mine’s carbon emissions by about 45%;

result in significant cost savings; and

take pressure off the Eskom grid.

Sturdee Energy will act as a joint developer and independent power producer (IPP) in these projects. Sturdee is an IPP that develops, finances, owns, and operates renewable energy projects to supply electricity to mining clients, large corporates, and government utilities in sub-Saharan Africa. The company has delivered more than 600 MW of operating solar projects and has active operations in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. Its vision is to deliver economic growth and socioeconomic development to Africa through the supply of reliable renewable energy.

juwi, which will act as joint developer, engineering, procurement and construction contractor, and operations and maintenance contractor in these projects, is one of the leading specialists for renewable energies. The renewable energy pioneer has been offering complete project development as well as other services relating to the planning, construction and operation of renewable energy systems for 25 years. The juwi group's business areas include projects with wind and solar energy as well as hybrid systems with storage facilities for industrial applications.

Founded in Germany in 1996, juwi is based in Wörrstadt, near Mainz. Since the end of 2014, it has been part of Mannheim-based MVV Energie AG, one of the largest municipal energy providers in Germany. The group, which employs more than 1 000 people worldwide, has projects on every continent, with subsidiaries in Germany, Italy, Greece, South Africa, the US, Japan, Australia, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.

To date, juwi has implemented more than 1 000 wind energy systems with an output of more than 2 400 MW at around 180 locations worldwide. In the solar segment there are around 1 800 PV systems with a total output of more than 3 000 MW. Together, these energy systems generate around nine-billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year. In mathematical terms, this corresponds to the annual requirements of around three-million households in Germany. For the implementation of the energy projects, juwi has initiated an investment volume of almost ten-billion euros over the past 25 years.

“Our decision to procure renewable energy for our mining operations is an important part of our ESG journey as a mining company. This is but one of a number of initiatives designed to cut our carbon emissions, increase our efficiencies and grow our contribution to the South African economy,” said Sedibelo chairperson Arne Frandsen.

“All companies have a role to play in reducing carbon ...

The ratio between green energy and brown energy in South Africa needs to move very rapidly in favour of green energy, says Climate Adaptation Lead to the South African Presidential Climate Commission and Institute for Security Studies Africa senior research associate Dhesigen Naidoo.

Naidoo was speaking during a Canada-hosted webinar organised by Fasken and covered by Mining Weekly. Also taking part in the webinar on the topic of the transition from brown to green energy and its impact on the South African mining industry were Johannesburg partner and moderator Mmaphuti Morolong, a member of Fasken’s global mining group, Department of Mineral Resources and Energy director-general Advocate Thabo Mokoena, Nedbank energy finance principal Sanjeev Mungroo and Fasken Johannesburg partner Francois Joubert.

Naidoo drew attention to the stark current impact of climate change on the world outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

He spoke of it being explicit that more the 3.6-billion people in the world today, including many in South Africa and certainly many more in the Southern African region, had already been adversely affected by climate change, and that the Secretary General of the UN talked about the IPCC report as being an atlas of human suffering.

“We cannot ignore this,” said Naidoo.

Differentiated responsibility was not only a global phenomenon, but also a regional phenomenon, he added in highlighting the comparison between South Africa and neighbouring countries, and the relative impact of greenhouse-gas emissions of each of these countries on climate change in the region.

“In fact, it’s fair to say that the loss and damage discussions are going to be very difficult. A lot depends on how fast the world moves because that will have implications for where South Africa and countries like South Africa see themselves.

“If you look at the ambitious targets of very high emitters in the developing world, like China and India, they are giving us a strong indication of where some of those players are going, and we should not be too far behind.

“The issue of the just transition is a very important one. It is a recognition that the South African economy by and large operates on the mineral energy nexus. We can philosophise about it if we want to, but that is the grim reality.

“It is the core of our economy, it is the core of our financial system, it is a very important mechanism for livelihoods for a fair number of people,” said Naidoo.

“The key point I want to make is that we need to move towards the diversification of energy very rapidly. This is not the same as giving up on brown energy altogether but the ratio between green energy and brown energy needs to move very rapidly in favour of green energy.

“But recognising all of this, the Presidential Climate Commission is investing in the just transition framework which the Department of Minerals and Energy (DMRE) is taking care of but there’s a much bigger transition that needs to be engaged around the socioeconomic movement and as we speak, the first of the consultation workshops on that just transition is happening in eMalahleni today, because the reality is that people are in a particular circumstance.

“In our quest to move towards decarbonisation, we can’t deliver a double whammy, particularly to the poor and vulnerable in those places.

“The concept of restorative justice is a very strong prevailing factor in that engagement and the idea is to develop either a formula or a series of formulas and interventions that organise for those people who are currently highly dependent on the fossil fuel value chain, and the coal value chain in particular, to not be worse off in the future than they are now, that they must be a transitionary element around it, including things such as skills and reorientation and movement to green industries, reorganising for the most arable agricultural land in Mpumalanga to ...

The Northern Cape’s mining sector is growing and can contribute positively to the country, but challenges such as aged infrastructure, poverty, high unemployment, inequality and illegal mining must be addressed, while exploration needs to be scaled up.

This was said by Mineral Resources and Energy Deputy Minister Dr Nobuhle Nkabane, at the Northern Cape Provincial Mining Investment Conference, in Kimberley, on March 10.

Nkabane emphasised that the conference must look at how exploration could be scaled up, as it was pivotal to the region’s investment drive.

“There are already numerous mining companies across the country, but the drill and shovel will stop when the known mineral reserves get depleted. That is why we must look into ways of fast-tracking exploration in this investment conference.

“On our part, we hope the Exploration Strategy will pave the way in this regard, and we will endeavour to ensure that relevant legislative instruments are in place to ease mining investment,” said Nkabane.

She said collective efforts and dialogue must result in a re-invigorated engagement between the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and the provincial government, as well as social partners, to jointly drive the growth and development of the sector.

Nkabane acclaimed that the Northern Cape was a commodity-rich province with a wide variety of minerals, including, among others: diamonds, manganese ore, iron-ore, lithium, rare earths, fluorspar, zinc, copper, lead and molybdenum ore, with these widespread over a vast georgical area.

She acclaimed that these mineral resources could help catapult the provincial economy to become a major contributor to the national gross domestic product.

She also highlighted that mining was growing at a steady rate in the province. For example, between 2011 and 2021, the Northern Cape office received more than 204 applications for mining rights, over 3 145 applications for prospecting rights and over 960 applications for mining permits.

However, she said that one of the key issues that must be dealt with was the number of non-operational mines in the province, for reasons that include a lack of investment, disputes among stakeholders, life-of-mine having been reached and mineral resources having been exhausted, as well as some cases of financial distress.

Some of the strategic interventions that the DMRE must commit to were, among others, to fast-track Section 11 applications, as well as to facilitate arbitration in disputes in collaboration with other institutions, Nkabane said.

She said that pivotal to these efforts would be for the DMRE to engage with the sector more actively, especially the emerging and junior sectors beyond the areas of regulation and policy only.

“The department must actively seek to facilitate, promote, and retain investments in the sector, in a deliberate and focussed manner,” emphasised Nkabane.

She also highlighted the importance of transformation in the sector. With regard to social and labour plan (SLP) projects, she said it was important that the local communities must be central to these developments, and must jointly identify the types of interventions to be undertaken.

Moreover, she said that mines should collaborate more closely and co-invest in high-impact and high-value economic infrastructure development projects that contribute to further economic expansion in these areas.

Nkabane also called for continued and enhanced mining exploration as the cornerstone to the future of the mining industry in South Africa.

“Working with the industry, we have compiled an Exploration Strategy which among others aims to ensure that we attain at least 5% share of global exploration expenditure within the short to medium term,” she noted.

In terms of energy use, Nkabane said that currently, the sector’s reliance on coal as a primary source of energy was at 75%.

“We have committed to progressively contribute our fair share as part of our approved Nationally Determined Cont...

Cabinet has announced its approval of an Exploration Strategy for the Mining Industry of South Africa; however, it does not seem to have been released for public comment and its actual legal nature is unclear.

The strategy proposes a collaboration between the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to ensure exploration provides for the inclusion of emerging exploration companies.

It also reinforces the research role to be played by research institutions such as Mintek and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and the need for a skills development programme.

The strategy was first announced in October 2019, followed by Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe stating a few months later government's aspiration to garner 5% of global exploration spend within five years.

AmaranthCX director Paul Miller says now, more than two years later, the country has limited time left to achieve this goal.

“One can only imagine that the contents of this strategy document will be incredible, if it is to grow exploration spend in the country at least five-fold from R1.2-billion a year currently to between the targeted R6-billion and R8-billion a year,” he notes.

Government, in a post-Cabinet meeting statement, said the strategy was a product of broader consultation between government, industry and other social partners; however, Miller, as a seasoned mining consultant, affirms that the strategy did not undergo a “broad consultation” process, as the content of the strategy remains to be seen by many stakeholders.

He adds that, while it is a positive move for the IDC to become involved, its few hundred million rands of assistance, albeit welcome and necessary, will not move the dial towards the R6-billion exploration spend South Africa needs to keep its mining sector alive.

“Our industry, barring single exceptional assets, has 20 years of operations left at current resources. Additionally, a Tier 1 deposit takes at least 15 years to develop from its date of discovery. It is imperative to get exploration going now,” Miller tells Mining Weekly.

Minerals Council South Africa communications head Allan Seccombe confirms that the council was involved in drafting the original exploration strategy document, but says it has not had sight of the Cabinet-approved version.

The council does not yet have information on when, or whether, the strategy will be published for public comment.

South Africa’s only rural community-owned mining company Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat), which delivered record dividend-yielding earnings and production in 2021, is close to completing its renewable energy study on the building of an embedded 30 MW photovoltaic (PV) power plant.

“It’s almost complete.we’re almost there, into renewable energy,” RBPlat CEO Steve Phiri said of the company’s planned modular PV initiative, for which an application for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is being lodged. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

On the time expected to be taken for the EIA approval, he said: “That’s the only thing that could cause a delay because it’s out of our own hands and in government hands. But given what President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared, we think that the red tape will be cut because it’s so important for the national economy itself,” Phiri added during a Teams interview with Mining Weekly.

Identifying opportunities to diversify into green energy supply is one of the key operational objectives of the JSE-listed company.

On the confidence in platinum group metals (PGMs) being generated by far-reaching international government strategy announcements on widespread uptake of green hydrogen, Phiri said: “The world is changing. This is a hydrogen world, looking forward at it. The world is decarbonising. We’re going to clean hydrogen and that clean hydrogen needs the PGMs. We’re going to go into fuel cells, and they need PGMs, particularly platinum, so there’s a bright future for platinum.

“I’ve got absolute confidence in platinum’s bright future, and if you listen to my peers, they’re all singing the same song, because the world is moving in that direction.

“You hear government declaring hydrogen policy and Europe, with the European Union, declaring hydrogen policy. The president of the US is driving it. China is developing fuel cell vehicles quite exponentially. The world is moving in that direction,” he added.

Questioned on his view of the best outcome for all stakeholders of the interest of Implats and Northam Platinum in acquiring RBPlat, he said: “It’s quite a difficult one to answer because we have taken a conscious decision, and correctly so, that we do not want to be seen as taking one side or the other. We don’t want to be partial.”

The company would be looking at the best interests of the shareholders and the stakeholders.

“We’ve got two options, one Implats, the other is Northam, with different characteristics and delivering different synergies, with the Northam transaction being the combination of two good management teams and two good assets, and therefore bulking up the cash flows and their return to shareholders quite quickly and easily. They are distant from the area and therefore it lacks those operational synergies when compared with Implats, which is contiguous with RBPlat and the question of access from one mining area to the other and combining management teams becomes easy. This also extends the life of the lease area, and that will help to sustain jobs.

“Both have strong cash flow potentials that will increase the dividend flow. So, it all depends on what you are looking at, but as the board, we’re dictated to by what is on the table, as not only a credible, but also an executable, transaction.

“But what is important to repeat is that we only have one offer on the table, which the shareholders are considering, and that offer is from Implats. We should not pretend that there are two competing bids on the table for the shareholders to consider, there’s only one offer on the table and that’s the Implats offer. When the other offer comes, depending again on how good it is for shareholders, we’ll make that decision.

WATERKLOOF HILLS ESTATE AND SCHOOL

An impressive RBPlat legacy is the Waterkloof Hills Estate, where more than 5 000 people are living, and the primary and secondary schools, where 95% of the 750 pupils who have enrolled are RBPlat employees, who own homes in the esta...