Johannesburg- and New York-listed miner Sibanye-Stillwater is investing $490-million in a lithium/boron mining project in Nevada, US, as it steps up its presence in the battery materials supply chain.

Sibanye-Stillwater on Thursday announced that it would establish a joint venture (JV) with Australia-listed ioneer to develop the Rhyolite Ridge project.

This is the precious metals major’s second lithium transaction and a third transaction in the battery metals sector, having preciously struck deals to acquire a stake in the owner of a lithium project in Finland and to buy a nickel hydrometallurgical processing facility in France.

“Rhyolilte Ridge is a world-class lithium project and we recognise its strategic value, with the potential to become the largest lithium mine in the US,” CEO Neal Froneman said.

In terms of the agreement, Sibanye-Stillwater would contribute $490-million for a 50% interest in the JV, with ioneer to maintain a 50% interest and retain operatorship. ioneer has also agreed to provide Sibanye-Stillwater with an option to participate in 50% of the North Basin, upon the election of Sibanye-Stillwater to contribute an additional $50-million.

Sibanye-Stillwater also agreed to a strategic placement of $70-million of ioneer’s shares at the developer’s ten-day volume-weighted average price of September 15. The proceeds from the placement would be used towards development capital requirements, medium-term working capital needs and to progress long-lead items to minimise time to production.

“With a strong strategic partner in place, we can now look to finalise the debt financing for the project and move towards construction. We are confident in the alignment of our companies. Our partnership with Sibanye-Stillwater will allow ioneer to unlock the tremendous, long-term value of Rhyolite Ridge,” said ioneer executive chairperson James Calaway.

The 2020 definitive feasibility study states that the project will require a capital investment of $785-million.

Rhyolite Ridge will produce an average of 20 600 t/y of lithium carbonate, converting in the fourth year of operation to 22 000 t/y of battery-grade lithium hydroxide and 174 000 t/y of boric acid over a 26-year mine life. The all-in sustaining cost for the project is $2 510/t, placing it in the bottom of the global cost curve.

ioneer recently signed an offtake agreement to supply lithium carbonate to a unit of South Korean battery maker Ecopro.

The Rhyolite Ridge project was dealt a blow in August when the US Fish and Wildlife Service said that it would propose listing a rare flower that grows in the vicinity of the mine as an endangered species.

ioneer's stock fell sharply on Thursday, trading 17% down at A$0.62 a share.

Australian-listed West Wits Mining, which is considering a secondary listing on the JSE, has commenced bush clearing and old shaft rehabilitation west of Johannesburg, as part of its far-reaching revival plans for an area where gold mining thrived as recently as 20 years ago.

West Wits Mining, which was recently granted its mining right, completed a definitive feasibility study on the first of its five targeted gold projects that reflect ongoing potential for gold activity in South Africa’s historic Witwatersrand basin. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Being reopened is an old section of Rand Leases and DRDGold that was closed at the start of the new millennium and West Wits Mining hopes to have its first gold ore on surface early next year.

As reported earlier this month by Mining Weekly, the company’s Witwatersrand Basin project could produce some 1.56-million ounces of gold over a 22-year mine life, with output over 18 years of this period averaging 80 000 oz/y to 90 000 oz/y.

Discussions are under way with nearby gold toll treaters who have licensed tailings facilities and gold refining accounts with Rand Refinery.

“We are going to employ a contractor who will help us to bring in contractor systems and then get mining up and running,” said West Wits Mining MD Jac van Heerden in a Zoom interview.

Mining Weekly: When does West Wits Mining envisage that its Witwatersrand Basin project will commence gold mining?

Van Heerden: It’s been a process getting to this point where we were recently granted our mining right and announced our feasibility study and we’re now in a position of starting up our mine, about 15 km to the west of the Johannesburg CBD. I’m happy to say that we’ve already started with bush clearing. We are busy rehabilitating some of the old shafts. We want to get going as quickly as possible and we hope to pull out the first ore early next year and from then on start building up the project, as described in our feasibility study, ramping up our first stage to about 50 000 oz/y and then ultimately with the potential of going to about 80 000 oz/y to 90 000 oz/y.

Have your studies confirmed that all this is possible?

We started off in 2019 with a scoping study to determine the potential of the whole block and identified in that scoping study about five mining targets. We decided we’ll take the first mining target, which we called the Qala Shallows, and put that into production and then over time we’ll bring in the other four mining targets into production and that will then get us into an ultimate production profile of about 80 000 oz to 90 000 oz per annum.

Are you planning to mine this yourselves or will you be appointing a mining contractor?

At the moment we’re still a small company. We have a dedicated management team but the objective is that we are going to employ a contractor that will help us to bring in contractor systems and then get mining up and running. We are quite advanced in talks with the mining contractor. There’s nothing that I can announce now but hopefully in the coming weeks we would have concluded our discussions with them, and then we can start placing orders on mining equipment, start employing people and get mining going.

What mining method do you intend deploying?

Luckily, those who mined there in the past have given us a nice blueprint of how to do it. We will pick up from what they have been doing in the past by deploying typical breast mining method. Our decline system will go down, we will then break away with drives, and then we will raise up and establish typical breast mine stoping as is being done all over South Africa.

Who was mining there before you arrived?

It’s an old section of Rand Leases and DRDGold and that section that we are looking to reopen was closed around 2001/2 or thereabouts. Ever since, that area has been dormant and we’re now looking to revive the mining that took place there 20 years ago.

How deep do you expect to go?

We’ve got a couple of nice targe...

Various large mining companies have joined hands to launch the International Mining Safety (IMS) Hub – an online hub of industry-endorsed visual safety tools that allow for greater learning opportunities and improved safety for all levels of employees.

"This is a collaboration by industry, for the industry. For too long have I witnessed the industry working in silos, individually investing substantial effort and resources in essentially just duplicating work already developed by their peers. The IMS Hub will change that," says co-founder Stephen Eichstadt.

The founding partners of the IMS Hub are Anglo American, AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold, Impala Platinum, Sibanye-Stillwater, Teck Resources and the Minerals Council South Africa and the hub is powered by global visual health and safety communication specialist agency Jincom.

Each founding partner contributes two suites of materials around key fatal or catastrophic risks at their operations. Once transformed into simplified visual tools, these tools are shared on the hub for the use and adaptation of all other partners.

The spirit of the IMS Hub is shared value aimed at making the mining industry safer, and partners only need to contribute information in order to participate.

The founding partners are encouraging other mining operations to join in and contribute valuable knowledge on the fatal hazard themes they would specialise in based on their operation.

AngloGold group safety VP George Coetzee emphasises the need for the hub to develop the industry further. “Some companies have progressed further in their safety journeys and bring maturity and learning from those journeys. This allows those companies, still in the early stages of the journey, to tap into the lessons learnt and wealth of knowledge gained. Ultimately, we will all gain from this in our ultimate goal of working places free from injury and harm.”

“We are proud to be a founding partner, as we believe in leveraging the excellent work of member organisations. This is a mining-led initiative that adopts the International Council of Mining and Metals' Critical Control methodology and is based on broad experience and learnings from incidents.

"We believe the hub will greatly assist all of us involved in mining to achieve the goal of zero fatalities and ultimately zero harm,” adds Anglo operational risk management lead Mark Robins.

Minerals Council safety and behaviour principal specialist Leigh McMaster says the value derived from this unique industry collaboration will undoubtedly add value to individual companies and the collective industry.

“The IMS Hub goes the extra mile by portraying the themes and standards as easy-to-understand visuals.

"Having simple visual information on hand goes a long way in ensuring all employees on the ground know how to keep themselves safe,” notes Harmony acting safety and technology executive Pieter Bezuidenhout.

THE TOOLS

The founding partners say the IMS Hub provides best-in-class tools that are aligned to evolving legislative requirements.

"It creates a space of learning where the mining industry is challenged to do better and work together to achieve zero harm. The hub is user-friendly and secure and the number of partners is limitless," they state.

Highly visual operator-focused safety standards are taken from complex technical documents and transformed into technically-accurate illustrations and infographics which improve understanding, help workers to retain information better and break through language and literacy barriers.

Critical controls state the preventive and mitigative controls most critical to saving lives and include the associated risk bowties in only a couple of pages.

Control checklists target all levels of an organisation with specifically illustrated checklists for managers, supervisors and operators to review each critical control, perform tasks safely and manage all risks involved. These can be downloaded as text files to be used in mobile device aud...

Gold mining company Pan African Resources on Wednesday reported record after-tax-profit, higher gold production and proposed its highest ever dividend.

In the 12 months to June 30, the company, headed by CEO Cobus Loots, recorded a 12.4% increase in group gold production to 201 777 oz, a 36% increase in operating profit to $128-million, a 14% improvement in all-in sustaining cost (AISC) margin to 30.9%, record profit after tax of $74.7-million, a 68.3% increase in earnings per share to $3.87c a share and 69% increase in headline earnings per share (HEPS). (Also watch attached Creamer Media video of presentation by Pan African FD Deon Louw.)

Mining Weekly can report that the London Aim- and Johannesburg-listed company has proposed a 28.5% increase in final proposed dividend of R402.2-million, or $28.3-million.

Net senior debt has been lowered by 45.6% to $33.7-million.

The group’s underground operations have performed well, which the company puts down to the development initiatives and innovations implemented over the past years.

The availability, for the first time, of four high-grade mining platforms and expanded footprints in the mining areas at Fairview Mine have contributed to an increase of 29.4% in yearly production from Barberton Mines’ underground operations.

Ramp up of production at Evander Mines’ 8 Shaft pillar operation highlights the potential of this high grade underground orebody, with production now in line with mining plans.

The AISC at the 8 Shaft pillar decreased substantially to $995/oz in the second half of the financial year, after Pan African resolved the production difficulties experienced in the first half of the financial year. The sub-$1 000/oz AISC achieved in the second half of the current financial year is indicative of the expected mining cost for the remainder of the 8 Shaft pillar’s life-of-mine.

The renewal of Barberton Mines’ mining rights by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy for a further 30 years endorses our technical work and the long-term LoM plans submitted for these mineral resources.

Earlier this year, Pan African announced the reassessment of its organic growth opportunities and resultant reprioritisation of capital expenditure (capex).

This gave rise to a reschedule of the Egoli project’s development timelines, as well as a re-evaluation of existing underground mining opportunities at Evander Mines’ 8 Shaft 24, 25 and 26 Levels, following cessation of mining at the 8 Shaft pillar.

Independent reviews have reportedly confirmed that no fatal flaws exist in the group’s internal technical and economic studies, which indicate compelling recovered grades and gold production from these areas.

Mining at the Egoli project and 25 and 26 Levels is to be phased in, following the cessation of underground operations at 24 Level. The capex on these projects will be funded from internal sources, subject to the current gold price environment prevailing.

At Barberton Mines, underground development at Project Dibanisa, which connects Sheba Mine to Fairview Mine at the top of the Main Reef Complex Shaft, has been progressed.

The extraction of a 10 000 t bulk sample is also currently in progress at the Royal Sheba project. These projects are expected to improve Barberton Mines’ production profile in the coming years, and together with other initiatives, reduce the operation’s AISC.

“We are, once again, pleased to report major positive strides in Pan African’s operational and financial performance, despite the challenges of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

“The operational flexibility afforded by our multiple producing assets has enabled the group to improve margins, achieve record profits and realise our second-highest annual gold production. We are also proposing our highest-ever dividend for approval at the upcoming annual general meeting,” said Loots.

The 69%-higher HEPS has enabled the 45.6% debt reduction in Group net senior debt and kept Pan African on track to invest in its own asset...

The generation of solar power by top-performing gold mining company Pan African Resources is expected to lower reliance on power utility Eskom by 30%, Pan African CEO Cobus Loots said on Wednesday, when the London Aim- and JSE-listed company reported record profit after tax and proposed its highest ever dividend.

In response to Mining Weekly on the company’s renewable energy plans, Loots said that as a group, Pan African’s focus is to function off the national electricity grid during daytime hours. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Loots said that the models run on an initial 10 MW at Evander gold mine would not include any storage initially because most storage solutions appeared to be quite expensive.

“But you can still work on about a 30% reduction in our power consumption and reliance on Eskom, and clearly if we expand that it will be more.

“Our intent would be to effectively have pretty much all of our group in South Africa run on solar during the daytime in the next two years or so. So, you can assume that will also reduce our power consumption and costs by about 30%,”

“The focus for now will be solar and making sure that solar works. Ten megawatts will be the first plant and by early next year it would have proven itself.

“The feasibility basically calculated that the payback on the capital is less than five years, and at the current rate of Eskom escalation, payback will probably be closer to four years.

“That’s the big focus for us now – just getting our group to run off the grid during the daytime hours in the next 24 months or so,” he reiterated.

In the 12 months to June 30, Pan African produced 12.4% more gold at 201 777 oz and reported a 36% increase in operating profit to $128-million.

NEAR-TERM ORGANIC GROWTH

In addition to its current low-cost operating gold assets of Elikhulu and Barberton Tailings Retreatment Plant surface operations – which account for more than 75% of total production – and Barberton Mines and Evander underground operations, Pan African also has a range of near-term growth projects, within the $1 151/oz all-in sustaining cost level just reported against the average financial year 2021 gold price of $1 826/oz realised from these operations.

With 24 Level of the Evander underground included, the company has secured Evander underground’s future for at least the next five years. A new phased approach to Evander’s Egoli gold project means that at prevailing gold prices, this development can be self-funding. The option of extending 24 Level to 25 and 26 as an add-on or a substitute to Egoli, is also not being ruled out.

“The study work on this project will be complete in the next months, whereafter we will update the market,” Loots said during the virtual presentation.

Meanwhile, the feasibility study on the other growth prospect, Mintails, estimates that the payback on the initial capital investment of about R2-billion will be less than three years from when gold production begins.

The definitive study on Mintails is now being progressed, which should be complete early next year. Overall, Pan African could in future be treating 800 000 t a month of surface material from seven tailings facilities with a life-of-mine of more than 11 years. The mineral resource totals more than one-million ounces, and recovery is expected to be at a rate of more than 50 000 oz a year at a cash cost of less than $1 000/oz.

There is also, with the addition of the Soweto cluster, a further 120-million tonnes of material, graded 0.3 g/t and totalling 1.2-million ounces in resource.

“If we proceed with this transaction, it will potentially not only be a positive for Pan African, but also for the current stakeholders. Our prefeasibility study has calculated that if we process all of the Mogale tailings facilities, the environmental liability can be reduced to a final number of approximately R100-million, a significant improvement to the current situation,” said Loots.

South Africa’s junior mining dearth is a result of savings no longer flowing through to primary capital raising and stock exchange listings, as the Jacobs Committee expected them to do.

The unintended consequence is that there are no longer small investors for small companies. This has negatively affected retail investor numbers and liquidity in smaller stocks in general and junior mining stocks in particular. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The Jacobs Committee expected the flow of funds into institutional savings would lead to an increase in the number of listed companies and an increase in the primary capital raising on the JSE. But that has failed to happen. Instead, the increase in funds into the institutional savings industry has gathered overwhelmingly at the big end of the stock exchange.

South Africa's R9-trillion worth of savings are not flowing through to primary capital raising and listings of new companies, which is a radical departure for a JSE that once had half of all the world’s mining market capitalisation listed on it.

What many are most concerned about is why so few new mining companies are listing on the JSE.

Take, by way of example, empowered mining investment company Ntsimbintle Holdings, headed by chairperson Saki Macozoma. This unlisted South African manganese miner grabbed the headlines in April by becoming the biggest single shareholder in the Australian-listed Jupiter, a Sydney-listed local miner bereft of any JSE link.

In acquiring just under 20% of Jupiter, Ntsimbintle is entitled to 47% of the profit from the manganese ore produced by the Tshipi Borwa mine, in the southern part of the Northern Cape’s manganese-rich Kalahari basin. This puts it in a strong position because Tshipi is one of South Africa’s biggest manganese exporters. Ntsimbintle is still only entitled to 37% of Tshipi’s ore, which it trades through Ntsimbintle Marketing & Trading in Singapore – but the JSE has still not featured in its successful sojourn. And there are examples of several other companies that mine in South Africa but have their main listings very far from Johannesburg.

NO TAX INCENTIVES FOR JUNIOR INVESTMENT AS IS THE CASE IN OTHER MINING JURISDICTIONS

South Africa continues to insist on having no tax incentives for investment in junior mining companies, as there are in other mining jurisdictions, even though former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel once promised them. This continues to be so in spite of many continuing to plead for incentives, not the least being the economic transformation committee (ETC) of the African National Congress (ANC), which in a 30-page document released in July last year, stated that South African retail investors willing to invest in mining exploration should be incentivised.

In order to translate South Africa’s comparative resources into a competitive advantage, the ANC ETC document states that there is a need to introduce robust junior mineral exploration and to build strong supportive mining supply and services sectors. The document acknowledges the need to place the mining industry on a path of competitiveness and long-term success.

STOCK BROKING CHANGE

A significant South African change is the way stock broking has changed in this country.

Stock brokers have converted themselves into wealth managers, who now also put retail investors’ money into large institutional funds that head for the big end of the stock exchange.

“That’s the change that has negatively affected smaller companies on the stock exchange,” said AmaranthCX director Paul Miller in a Zoom interview with Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Retail investors are benefitting from:

no longer having product pushed on them;

not paying unreasonable commissions;

not being misadvised; and

having many non-legal relief routes to pursue if they have been mistreated by the financial services industry.

“But where there has not been benefit is that the large institutional funds through which they ...

arrick Gold CEO Mark Bristow spent years burnishing his reputation as an aggressive dealmaker, but he says now he is focused on new mines that he hopes will boost profit and the company's sagging stock price.

The strategy eschews the acquisition appetite that made Barrick what it is today and instead pins the company's growth on exploration projects in Egypt, Nevada, Guyana and elsewhere.

"The very foundation of our future has to be our geologists and where we are investing," Bristow told Reuters on the sidelines of the MINExpo conference in Las Vegas, the quadrennial gathering of industry executives and suppliers. "Organic growth is always a winner when it comes to value."

Barrick's shares have lagged rival Newmont and the S&P 500 this year, putting pressure on Bristow and his management team. But Bristow said that by funding exploration, rather than striking deals, Barrick's costs should drop over time, boosting revenue.

"We've got to balance the short-term-ism that fund managers want ... with the fact that we are investing capital for the long term," he said. "You've got to be patient."

Bristow, 62, has long implored his fellow CEOs to buy each other. Last autumn, he called for industry consolidation as the best way to avert a "serious reserve crisis" looming for the sector.

He formed the existing Barrick when it bought his Africa-focused Randgold Resources in 2019. A few months later, Bristow made an $18-billion hostile bid for Newmont, a deal that eventually fizzled but not before both companies formed a Nevada joint venture.

Integrating all those corporate cultures was complicated, Bristow said, but a process almost complete that should help the company focus on growing.

The newfound focus on internal growth comes as Bristow pushes the mining industry to better invest in host communities.

"They are stakeholders that are as important as our own shareholders," he said.

BETTER FISH TO FRY

Bristow said the company will strike a deal should an appealing one present itself, which he described as a mine that can produce 500 000 oz of gold annually "for a long time" and be profitable at gold prices of $1 200 an ounce. But he stressed that acquisitions would be a secondary focus.

As a tangible sign that his deal interest may be cooling, Bristow said he has no interest in buying a stake in Zambia's Mopani Copper Mines, which government-controlled mining investment arm ZCCM-IH took control of from Glencore earlier this year. ZCCM has said it is searching for an external investment partner.

Bristow also in the past year repeatedly floated a buyout of rival Freeport-McMoRan, saying such a tie-up would make logical sense. Now, though, that interest is gone.

"It was absolutely the right thing to consider," Bristow said. "But right now, today, I think there are better fish to fry than Freeport."

Toronto-based Barrick has no interest in nickel, lithium or other metals used to make electric vehicles and will deepen its focus on copper and gold, which are often found together geologically, Bristow added.

Separately, Bristow said he supports Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema's plan to rework mining policies and boost industry investment.

He added that he is eager to complete a deal with Papau New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape to restart the Porgera gold mine after a protracted licensing fight.

The imposition of a tax on the export of chrome ore would be high risk and the gain from such an intervention would likely be eroded fairly quickly by the high cost of electricity, which is the real problem.

Chrome SA’s Alistair McAdam and Paul Anderson of Genesis Analytics highlighted this summary when they spoke to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview on Monday. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“The reason why the ferrochrome industry was initiated in South Africa was access to low-cost chrome ore, and other raw materials, and also low-cost electricity,” said McAdam, who has been campaigning against the imposition of a chrome ore export tax for close to a year.

ChromeSA, an organisation of non-integrated, primary chrome ore producers, was formed late last year after the Cabinet announced that a chrome export tax was in the offing. But it has not yet been implemented.

ChromeSA felt it important to address the subject again this week owing to what it described as considerable pro-tax media attention in recent months.

“The situation with chrome ore hasn't really changed. The ferrochrome smelters that have their own chrome ore mines still access chrome ore at a reasonable price, or they can buy it in at prices significantly less than their Chinese competitors can buy it in.

“But the difference really is in the electricity price. That has increased by over 500% since 2008 and that is the real reason why the cost of electricity, which is a major input cost to the South African ferrochrome industry, is so high,” said McAdam.

“We felt it important that the other side of the narrative was presented, whereby we can put forward our position on why this tax would not benefit the ferrochrome industry and would be very detrimental to our own,” said McAdam.

“Support of one industry sector that is struggling by disadvantaging another doesn't seem to us to be very equitable, particularly if the job losses that will result from the imposition of such a tax would be greater than those potentially saved.

“The tax, if imposed, will increase the cost structure of the non-integrated chrome ore producers, such that some of them will no longer be profitable, reduce production or go out of business, and alternative sources of chrome ore will be found.

“If the Chinese are having to buy higher cost chrome ore from South Africa, they will look for alternative sources of supply. We admit that that would not be overnight. South Africa is the major supplier of the chrome ore around the world, but business will look to alternatives and increase supply to fill that gap,” said McAdam.

GENESIS REPORT

Anderson of the analytics company Genesis, which has carried out an analysis of the implications of the imposition of a chrome export tax, emphasised the likelihood of non-integrated primary producers being forced to absorb some of the cost of the tax should it be implemented, with negative repercussions.

He does concedes that export taxes can make sense when used to secure scarce supply for local industry.

“But the logic behind this tax is not about scarce supply because the ferrochrome sector themselves have their own mines and long-term offtake agreements with some of the other producers. They’ve got more than enough supply themselves and that supply is at a very low price.

“The logic of this is effectively to raise China’s ferrochrome production costs and, by dint of doing that, to improve the relative competitiveness of South African ferrochrome.

“There are a number of strands to that logic which we’ve had a look at and which we rate as being uncertain, and effectively what this becomes is very much a high-risk gamble.

“Even though South Africa is the biggest exporter of chrome ore into China, we’re not the only ones, and what this chrome export tax will do is push us up the cost curve as a country,” he said.

“We estimate in our analysis that it’s probably somewhere between 22% to 32% of our export volumes which could be vulnerable to being replaced...

NYSE- and JSE-listed DRDGold says a project to convert the Driefontein 2 Plant (DP2) at the Far West Gold Recoveries (FWGR) surface retreatment operation, in Gauteng, to closed-circuit milling, is nearing completion.

The R80-million project will achieve a finer grind and, thereby, improve gold recovery rates, as well as enhance leaching conditions, reduce maintenance costs and increase water storage capacity in the current thickeners.

FWGR MD Kevin Kruger explains in a statement that, prior to its acquisition, DP2 treated 180 000 t a month of waste rock.

Post-acquisition, the plant was converted from closed-circuit hard rock milling to three-stage cyclone milling, in an open-circuit configuration, for the coarser fractions in the slimes reclaimed from the Driefontein 5 dump.

“The open-circuit configuration was used due to the limited thickening capacity of the original circuit, the need for a leach density of about 1.45, and to contain capital expenditure.

“Post commissioning and optimisation of the mill, improved gold recoveries of between 46% and 49% were achieved but fell short of recoveries of more than 50% which had been indicated from laboratory test work,” says Kruger.

As the new, regional plant planned as part of the previously announced second phase of development of FWGR will employ closed-circuit milling, it was decided to close the circuit on the current mill to align the two.

“This will ensure that higher-grade, coarser particles don’t get just a single pass through the mill but multiple passes until fine,” notes Kruger.

The conversion to closed-circuit milling entails replacing the two tertiary cyclones with a cluster of cyclones that will classify the mill discharge, together with the primary and secondary cyclone overflows.

The coarse cluster underflow will report back to the mill and the finer cyclone overflow to a new 45-m-diameter high-rate thickener.

The new thickener is required to adjust the slurry density to 1.45 for treatment in the carbon-in-leach plant.

The company expects to commission the converted plant in November.

South Africa’s early mover advantage in green hydrogen will fade and become ineffective over time without a collaborative, collective and holistic national approach that assures the export of green hydrogen over and above its domestic use.

That was the strong message that came across in the Hydrogen Economy Discussion webinar in which AP Ventures founding partner Kevin Eggers, PwC South Africa director energy, strategy and infrastructure James Mackay, Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) head of mining and metals, infrastructure and energy Reginald Demana, and Atlantis Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Company acting CEO Dr Pierre Voges participated, under the watchful eye of mining doyen Bernard Swanepoel. (Also look at attached Creamer Media video.)

The big takeaway is that domestic and export green hydrogen potential must be considered together if either is to be economically competitive.

The export of green hydrogen is expected to lead South Africa’s green hydrogen growth story, with export and domestic balances being key.

South Africa is seen in the early stages as being in the lowest quartile of cost globally as a result of having a good balance of natural resources, sufficient land, good positioning, infrastructure, and legal and banking expertise.

However, projected over time, South Africa keeps slipping down the projected cost curve according to the projected calculations being done and by 2040-45, the country is, at best, mid of the global cost curve. That is because other countries with natural resources will be catching up.

The debaters concurred about South Africa's early mover advantage needed to be anchored by exports because the country does not have the financial incentives, subsidies and finance available to accelerate domestic uptake.

AP Ventures, which is looking for investments in South Africa, has 80% of its investments in the US and Europe.

The Anglo American-linked venture capital company had its origin eight years ago as a corporate venture development fund spun out of Anglo American Platinum, and quickly learnt the close coupling between platinum group metals (PGMs) and hydrogen, and the opportunity to get PGMs to play a catalytic role in bringing about the hydrogen economy.

“The two are inextricably linked in my view,” said Eggers of PGMs and hydrogen. AP Ventures manages $400-million and has invested in 17 portfolio companies. Last year, 200 of the 500-plus deals that AP Ventures viewed were hydrogen-linked, the online webinar covered by Mining Weekly heard.

“We see a lot of hydrogen opportunities. What we look at as a team is very much focused on the venture capital end, so the early stage novel technology part of that spectrum, and we invest all the way across the value chain,” Eggers said.

“Importantly, worth mentioning in terms of this South African focused audience is that we have the majority of our capital from South African sources, and that Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and the Public Investment Corporation form the cornerstone of our capital base.

“Beyond that we have Japanese, Norwegian and French investors, but it’s very important that we’ve got this strong base of South Africans who see this really interesting link between the PGMs growth and the opportunity to build our hydrogen economy.

“I must say at the outset that I’m bullish, I’m very optimistic about hydrogen, I’m very optimistic about the opportunity for South Africa to benefit on the back of successfully building the hydrogen economy.

“I know it’s going to be hard to marshall that level of capital into a nascent sector like the hydrogen economy but I’m still optimistic.

“South Africa is a very important geography for us. We want to see this hydrogen story develop here, and I think we can do that by bringing some technology into the country and putting some dollars to work at the same time,” said Eggers.

Questioned on how much risk the IDC was prepared to take on piloting hydrogen projects within South Africa, Demana...