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Huge demand for green ammonia from power stations is being seen by the developer of South Africa's R105-billion green hydrogen to green ammonia project in the Eastern Cape.

Hive Hydrogen South Africa, chaired by for Eskom CEO and former Standard Bank chairperson Thulani Gcabashe, has progressed from mid-stage to advanced-stage development with Phase 1 of the far-reaching green hydrogen to green ammonia project at the Coega Industrial Development Zone, in Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay.

"This is a really exciting time for us," Hive Hydrogen GM Colin Loubser enthused in a Zoom interview with Engineering News & Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

With the renewable energy green electron assets proceeding to plan, Hive has completed front end engineering design or FEED studies on the green hydrogen molecule portion and has begun the request for information process with all the engineering procurement and construction companies, both global and local.

In addition to maritime market demand burgeoning exponentially for green ammonia to enable unacceptable sea pollution to be brought to an end, the world is seeing an unexpected revolution in the power side.

"We've started to see ammonia turbines coming out that are ready for deployment, so we see green ammonia power stations replacing coal-fired power stations and new power station demand for green ammonia, and that's a really exciting development.

"We spoke recently to a European project that would require all our annual production of green ammonia to fire a green ammonia power station they're planning. This nascency of the market has started to mature now into an early-stage industry. It's starting to find traction now in global plans.

"The hottest topic is how green ammonia is going to reshape particularly the maritime industry, which is a heavy polluter of the oceans. The use of heavy fuel oils and diesels not only pollute the air, but spillages also pollute the water and there are big carbonisation issues.

"We're seeing, in looking at the shipping industry now, the number of ships that have been commissioned to run on green ammonia as a maritime fuel is exponentially increasing. The technology readiness levels of the green ammonia engines for shipping have reached technology readiness level nine, which means they're bankable and high quality," said Loubser.

Another key advance has been the visit of strategic investors to South Africa. "We've had a delegation of 19 people from Japan. We've got a few more delegations coming in from Europe, and potentially from the US as well. The project has a lot of momentum, and it's moving at the right pace, and in the right direction."

Hive signed a memorandum of cooperation with Itochu in December last year with offtake being spotlighted.

"Almost a daily activity in my life is talking to offtakers. That's going exceptionally well. We're very confident of European and Far East offtake.

"In the next couple of weeks at the most, we'll see direction of how contracts will look for Korea and Japan.

"We're also seeing huge shifts in green ammonia demand out of the fertiliser industry in Europe and more and more by industry looking to cracking ammonia back to hydrogen.

"We 're very focused on Japan, Korea and on the green fertiliser industry in Europe. What is exciting for future phases and maybe even a little bit for the first phase of our project is the increase of South Africa's interest in offtake in South Africa. We have to find a balance on that, and have to fit into all the regulatory regimes that Japan and Korea are now implementing, and Europe similarly.

"So, it's really good timing. We've anticipated the nascency of the marketplace well, it's now emerging as a proper plan, and, luckily, we think we've called it correctly," Loubser added.

Will funding still be a combination of 70% debt and 30% equity and is the final investment decision (FI...

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Toronto- and New York-listed Platinum Group Metals, the near-term objectives of which are to advance the Waterberg Project in Limpopo to a development and construction decision, is working with the South African government to analyse the possibility of exporting platinum group metals concentrate.

An initial trade-off study has been completed to determine the viability of exporting the concentrate from South Africa to Saudi Arabia and a key requirement would be to secure a long-term permit for the export from South Africa of unrefined precious metals in concentrate, the company stated in its third-quarter results report on Thursday.

The Waterberg project is planned as a fully mechanised, shallow, decline access platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold mine, including by-product copper and nickel production.

A cooperation agreement that Platinum Group Metals, headed by CEO Frank Hallam, has with Ajlan & Bros Mining and Metals to study in three phases the establishment of a stand-alone PGM smelter and base metals refinery in Saudi Arabia encompases a:

global PGM concentrate market study currently in process that includes the sourcing of global concentrate to minimise one-project risk;

definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the construction and operation of the PGM smelter and BMR in Saudi Arabia; and

option to form a 50:50 joint venture following the completion of the smelter DFS, which will assume the export of PGM concentrate from Waterberg to a port facility in Saudi Arabia.

PLATINUM BATTERY ADVANCING

The Lion Battery initiative involving the use of platinum and palladium in lithium battery technologies continues to be advanced in collaboration with Anglo American Platinum and Florida International University of the US.

The Battery Innovation Centre in Newberry, Indiana, US, has been engaged to help to drive commercialisation efforts for the next generation platinum and palladium based battery chemistries.

Proprietary lithium-sulphur and enhanced lithium-ion technology using the catalytic properties of platinum and palladium are progressing.

Independent small- and large-scale trials to validate Lion's proprietary platinum and palladium based electrode composition, slurry, and films in both lithium-sulphur and lithium-ion coin and pouch cells fall under a scope of work that the Battery Innovation Centre is conducting.

Collaboration with the centre includes additional research and development on improving performance and scale-up with the goal of creating prototypes for commercialisation consideration this year.

Lion's target is to develop batteries with specific energies that are 20% to 100% higher than current technologies while meeting or exceeding their present cycle lives.

LATEST FINANCIAL RESULTS

During the nine months ended May 31, a net loss of $4.02-million compared with $4.05-million in the corresponding period of last year.

General and administrative expenses during the period were lower at $2.57-million and share based compensation higher at $1.61-million.

Total expenditures on Waterberg in the nine months were $2.3-million and total expenditures on the property since inception were $88.1-million.

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses the need to put to work South Africa's mineral endowment and public market advantages; the collaboration between Johannesburg-listed Orion Minerals and Utshalo; and mining’s dormant gold analyser that could be a potential gold optimiser.

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For 30 years, 800 people at the now defunct Chamber of Mines Research Organisation (COMRO) devoted intense ongoing effort to research and development to advance mining in general and gold mining in particular.

However, during a period of very tight gold-price constraint, COMRO ceased to function in the form it had to three decades at a time when a promising portable X-ray fluorescence instrument was entering the final stretch of its developmental journey.

The portable gold analyser in question is able to quickly tell one the grade of the gold in an underground stope.

All one does is move it across the rockface and it can tell one whether it is worth mining what may look like uneconomic reef.

With the gold price and global technology both at all-time highs, South Africa's gold mining industry is seen as having major additional revenue potential from a revival of what was intensively researched and developed but could not be seen through its last stretch to the finish line.

This has been highlighted by Brian Protheroe in the book COMRO's Legacy.

"At the time, a number of industry members thought that it was an exceptional piece of equipment that had huge potential benefits," Protheroe recalled in a Zoom video interview with Mining Weekly this week. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

But knowledge of it today is far from being great and at a meeting Protheroe had at one of the gold mines the other day, young mining engineers were not even aware of the ruggedised gold-grade instrument locally developed by what was one of the largest privately funded mining research and development organisation in the history of the world.

"At the time, there was a fine balance between the gold price, the working cost of mining the gold, and the grade of the gold, which is the amount of gold in the rock being mined.

"The industry was unable do a great deal about the very low gold price, which in the 80s and 90s was about $400 a ton, and it fluctuated greatly.

"Wanted was a more accurate, reliable and quick method of measuring the amount of gold in the reef being mined," Protheroe reminisced.

To get one, COMRO formed a project team and collaborated with an international instrument manufacturer to develop the portable X-ray fluorescence instrument for rapid gold measurement.

The organisation tested prototypes in laboratory and field conditions and created procedures for analysing various gold, uranium, lead, iron, carbon, silica elements in the reef.

The instrument was made portable computer compatible and the prototype showed great potential, especially on wide, low-grade reefs and those with coarse-grained gold, with grade estimates from the analyser closely matching traditional chip sample estimates.

A more accurate, reliable method was wanted. That's where the work started on developing an improved method that enabled information to be sent quickly to enable management to avoid mining reef that had too little gold in it.

What was involved in the development and testing of prototypes?

We put a team of experts together in collaboration with an external equipment manufacturer, which was our way of undertaking research. We looked at what was available, and the route followed was looking at developing a portable X-ray fluorescence instrument. The four instruments produced were laboratory tested in simulated mining conditions over a long time and issues like intrinsic safety and radiation needed addressing. Field evaluation was extensive with tests on gold, uranium, lead, carbon, and silica to obtain background X-ray fluorescence information to outline the gold, and a prototype was developed.

How was implementation and use in mines undertaken?

Because it was a new method of evaluating the grade of gold in the rock, they actually required a change in organisational structure in the traditional mining process. This involved doing in-situ analysis of the gold at th...

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With South Africa's mineral endowment and its public capital markets being two of its greatest advantages, both need to be put to work in a manner that is common in other global mining jurisdictions, Utshalo founder Paul Miller emphasised at Wednesday's collaborative opening of the way for smaller investors to increase their shareholdings in the Northern Cape's attractive copper endowment.

In this case, collaborative initiative brings Australia Stock Exchange (ASX)-style shareholder participation to smaller South African shareholders through the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), implemented by Utshalo and the Johannesburg- and Sydney-listed Orion Minerals, headed by CEO Errol Smart. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

"We've not had the kinds of incentives that encourage both exploration and investment via public market, like flow through shares, for example, in other markets. But hopefully here, by the industry itself working together, this will happen.

'We need to get money into the ground, get projects built. You develop the public markets to support those projects, and then get people to work," Miller outlined.

"I think this will be well supported, particularly because it's in the money. We're trading at 20 cents, and you can buy at 18 cents direct from the company, without paying any brokerage fees," Smart highlighted the online webinar covered by Mining Weekly.

JSE- and the ASX-listed Orion has 23 000 South African shareholders and in undertaking a capital raising to progress its Prieska Copper Zinc Mine and Okiep Copper Project in South Africa's Northern Cape.

Eligible South African shareholders, those holding shares on June 28, may now participate in Orion's latest share purchase plan (SPP) in same way as Australian shareholders. There is no equivalent to a SPP in South African public markets and if South Africa's public markets are to regain their vibrancy, we need to adopt more practices from those markets that are like the ASX. Orion, as an ASX primary listed company, subject to ASX listing rules, is showing the way," Miller, who has experience as an approved JSE sponsor executive, stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

"I'm really proud of the fact that Orion is now almost majority South African owned. If I look at the share register, where we can see the actual individual shareholders by name and address, it certainly appears to be the case that the majority of Orion shares are held by historically disadvantaged South African HDSA shareholders.

"Probably more than 25% of Orion is owned by HDSA people on the listed stock exchange, not because we were forced to do it, but because it's good business practice, so it has worked for us.

"What is important is that I have a company that's worth R1.3-bilion, R1.4-billion that's 50% South African retail owned.

"So, we've got R700-million rands worth of shares in the hands of retail South African shareholders that are willing to trade and actively get involved in exploration and mine development.

"Surely that tells us that there is an appetite. We've got to create the structures that make brings that source of capital together with the miners and explorers that need that capital so that we can go forward.

"This is a bit of an experiment. I hope it opens that door. I think it will, and previously, we were very pleased. In 2020, we were bowled over by the support that we got from the JSE. I think we ended up getting the equivalent of A$1.3-million at the time, without even marketing," Boksburg-born Smart remarked from Springbok, in the Northern Cape.

Orion has just finished a trial mining programme at the reviving Prieska mine and has a bankable feasibility study team at Okiep.

In addition to a placement of 513-million shares at A$0.015c a share to sophisticated and professional investors, eligible South African shareholders will also be allowed to subscribe to the SPP will be undertaken...

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When South African listed companies raise money locally, they rarely include smaller shareholders.

Now, collaboration between Johannesburg- and Sydney-listed Orion Minerals, headed by CEO Errol Smart, and Utshalo, headed by Paul Miller, is aimed at bringing Australia Stock Exchange (ASX)-style shareholder participation to smaller South African shareholders through the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

Orion, which is listed on the JSE and the ASX, has more than 22 000 South African shareholders and in undertaking a capital raising to progress its Prieska Copper Zinc Mine and Okiep Copper Project in South Africa's Northern Cape, its eligible South African shareholders are being enabled to participate in its latest share purchase plan (SPP), in same way as Australian shareholders participate.

There is no equivalent to a SPP in South African public markets. To regain vibrancy, South Africa's public markets need to adopt more practices from markets such as the ASX.

"Orion, as an ASX primary listed company, subject to ASX listing rules, is showing the way," Miller, who has experience as an approved JSE sponsor executive, stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

In addition to a placement of 513-million shares at A$0.015c a share to sophisticated and professional investors, eligible South African shareholders will also be allowed to subscribe to the SPP will be undertaken to provide eligible existing shareholders at the equivalent R0.18c a share because Orion would like to ensure that all its eligible South African resident shareholders have the opportunity to participate in the SPP alongside their ASX peers.

Eligible shareholders will be able to participate on Utshalo's online platform.

As a division of Ince, Utshalo is a juristic representative of InsuranceSupermarket Insurance Brokers, an Authorised Financial Services Provider.

Although headquartered in Australia, Orion's primary focus is on advancing its portfolio in South Africa. Boksburg-born geologist Smart chairs the Junior Mining and Exploration Forum of Minerals Council South Africa.

South Africa has a pressing need to reawaken its public markets amid new mining capital raisings having become too few and far between.

Far more direct retail participation is needed than is currently the case and Utshalo has recognised the pressing need to recreate a direct relationship between non-institutional investors and companies seeking growth capital.

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Platinum and palladium have been spotlighted on day-two of Shanghai Platinum Week, where South Africa is well represented by Minerals Council South Africa as well as platinum group metals (PGM) mining company executives.

The newly announced ingot and sponge monthly contracts offer a domestic mechanism to hedge price risk and boost the ongoing development of China's PGMs market, which is essential to the Asian giant's energy transition and ongoing decarbonisation efforts.

No other exchange in the world enables the delivery of sponge, which could be transformative for industrial users of PGMs, as well as automakers, as this is the main form typically used for their manufacturing purposes, Mining Weekly can report.

Chinese national futures exchange dedicated to green commodities essential for the energy transition - Guangzhou Futures Exchange - on Tuesday revealed the details of its platinum and palladium futures contracts during a keynote speech at Shanghai Platinum Week.

The new contracts, which are denominated in local renminbi yuan currency, will be the first platinum and palladium derivatives available in China, marking a highly consequential new hallmark in global PGMs marketing.

The new futures contracts represent an important shift in the way both metals are purchased, traded and how price risk is managed, particularly for domestic market participants in China, but also internationally.

Rather than the three-month contracts typically offered by other exchanges, key features of the new products include twelve-month contracts, which not only bestow escalated hedging flexibility but also more frequent opportunities for settlement.

If they hold contracts to expiry, participants will be able to opt to offset the position or to take delivery of either form of the metals.

Uniquely, platinum and palladium in the form of ingots and sponge - pure metal in powder form - as opposed to just ingots, will be accepted if delivery is required.

Other benefits of Guangzhou Futures Exchange 's new futures include providing a mechanism for businesses involved in the market to hedge price risk and better manage their operations, something that is currently not freely accessible in China.

For example, the removal of price risk will allow platinum jewellery and investment product fabricators to reduce the premium charged for platinum products as well as the discount on buyback.

Guangzhou Futures Exchange platinum and palladium futures research and development lead Chen Xuanchen emphasised the impact this was likely to have on platinum and palladium markets, domestically and globally.

"Our exchange fills a gap in the Chinese market, providing the mechanisms to discover the domestic prices of platinum and palladium in China and help businesses hedge price risk, opening up working with the two metals to a greater number of market participants throughout the metal value chains.

"The ability to hedge price risk will provide a welcome boost to the ongoing development of China's PGMs market which is essential to the country's energy transition and ongoing decarbonisation efforts. The availability of domestic futures could potentially boost consumer confidence in both metals, increase the availability of recycled metal and further accelerate demand growth," added Xuanchen.

World Platinum Investment Council CEO Trevor Raymond described the platinum and palladium contracts as a ground-breaking development for the PGMs market globally.

"Any mechanism that enhances the overall stability and efficiency of the Chinese platinum market will have significant benefits for the broader global market," Raymond noted.

The advance arises at a particularly important time for platinum investment demand growth in China, with last year's demand for coins and bars under 500 g in size growing 37% to 52 000 oz, with an additional 134 000 oz of demand from platinum bars in the 500 g to 1 kg ra...

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Thrifted platinum is continuing to play its critical catalytic role in the significant strides that have been made towards making liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) competitive, SherLOHCk reported on Monday.

South Africa foms part of the international SherLOHCk project that is enabling clean hydrogen to be transported and traded globally in the same way as oil and in the process make use of existing oil infrastructure.

As a clean and sustainable energy carrier, which produces no emissions except water, hydrogen has the potential to become the universal energy carrier, but without the environmental impact.

SherLOHCk's aim is to take LOHC down the cost curve and lower the energy it requires to facilitate catalytic reactions.

Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies, part of the South Africa-linked AP Ventures' investment portfolio, has developed a technology to bind hydrogen to an oil, allowing for more efficient and lower cost transport in ambient conditions

Meanwhile, the SherLOHCk project is focused on creating cost-effective and environmentally friendly catalysts that enhance the efficiency of both hydrogenation and dehydrogenation processes and multiple catalyst formulations have been prepared and tested achieving a low platinum content bimetallic catalyst as the most promising ones.

SherLOHCk, which received financial support from the Clean Hydrogen Partnership and the European Union, is targeting cost-effective and environmentally friendly catalysts for hydrogenation and dehydrogenation. Hence, multiple catalyst formulations have been prepared and tested achieving a low platinum content bimetallic catalyst as the most promising ones.

Approaches to reactor design and thermal management have been developed to reduce the overall energy consumption of the LOHC system. Novel catalytic system architecture and internal heating has reportedly proved a stable behaviour in continuous mode.

Initial testing results of a scaled-up LOHC technology demonstration system are described as being very promising.

Moreover, preliminary findings of environmental impact assessments point to LOHC being techno-economically and environmentally.

By pushing the boundaries of LOHC technology, the way is being paved for sustainable hydrogen storage and transport.

"These advancements are crucial for the future of green energy," SherLOHCk stated in release to Mining Weekly, as they address the practical and economic challenges of hydrogen logistics.

Hydrogen is thus poised the viable way of rendering sun and wind energy transportable and tradable on a global scale amid the storage density of hydrogen in LOHC being up to five times higher than conventional high-pressure storage. A cubic metre of LOHC can carry about 57 kg of hydrogen. Thus, transport capacities on trucks, trains, buses, ships and planes are increased, and total cost of hydrogen supply to customers reduced.

Hydrogenious of Germany have developed an efficient and completely safe method for storing and transporting hydrogen - and therefore renewable energy - by chemically binding the hydrogen molecules to an easy-to-handle oil, through LOHC.

The carrier oil is readily available. The fluid used is non-toxic, hardly flammable, non-explosive and remains in a useable and convenient liquid state through a broad temperature range of -39 ºC to 390 ºC, which makes it possible to transport the LOHC in the existing global fuel infrastructure.

The technology as such is thus simple since it is based on a reversible catalytic hydrogenation and then dehydrogenation process. After the release of the hydrogen, the carrier substance can be reused as carrier for several hundred times. With hydrogen being the smallest and the lightest molecule, the efficient storage and transport of hydrogen is the key to connect the upstream and downstream of the complete hydrogen supply chain.

The storage density of hydrogen in the LOHC system is u...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer notes that South Africa is expected to be well represented at the Shanghai Platinum Week next week; he discusses the potentially game-changing technology for platinum group metal mines; and talks positivity among investors for South Africa’s government of national unity.

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Over the course of April and May, an inflow of more than half a million ounces of platinum flowed into exchange trade funds (ETF) holdings in the UK, the biggest since South Africa's ETF initial public offering (IPO) on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange nearly a quarter century ago.

"The more than half a million ounce inflow we saw into the UK ETFs is the biggest ever addition into any of the regional ETFs, with the exception of when, for example, the South African one was first set up.

"That initial ETF IPO obviously attracted a lot of attention, and therefore a lot of demand for platinum, but this is the biggest non-IPO flow of material we've seen," World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) director of research Edward Sterck highlighted in interview with Mining Weekly ahead of next week's Shanghai Platinum Week from July 8 to July 11.

With studies suggesting that platinum is an effective diversifier of risk alongside other investments and a long-term store of value, Minerals Council South Africa members and South African mining company executives will be well represented at the Shanghai event amid globally up to $10-billion in assets already being invested in platinum.

Chinese investors have known platinum for many years as jewellery and with more people saving for retirement, having platinum as part of a retirement investment is being increasingly seen as making sense.

Shanghai Platinum Week 2024 comes at a time of buoyant platinum investment demand in China, boosted by an increased availability of investment products, including the 100g Dragon platinum bar series and a 1kg bar produced by Metalor.

Last year, retail investment demand in China - encompassing coins and bars under 500g - grew 37% year on year to 52 000 oz. At least a further 100 000 oz of demand came from platinum bars in the 500g to 1kg range. This year, further growth is forecast, with coin and small bar below 500g investment demand alone expected to reach 60 000 oz.

There are no platinum mines in China and having platinum on Chinese soil is seen as a good idea.

China is the world's largest consumer of platinum group metals (PGMs) and South Africa is the biggest supplier of PGMs.

FIVE-YEAR PGMS PROGRAMME

With the New York Platinum Week that is scheduled to take place in September, a company that has had a long association with South Africa as a PGMs promoter - Johnson Matthey - has joined the US Department of Energy's Critical Materials Innovation Hub (CMI) to help shape their five-year PGMs programme.

From hydrogen fuel cells and electrolysers to sustainable fuels and chemicals PGMs are poised to play a key role in the world's advance to a net-zero emissions era.

The company will inform the CMI Hub in developing technologies that make efficient use of PGMs and embed circularity, applying expertise from its decades of experience across the PGM ecosystem, Johnson Matthey industrial PGM research and strategy manager Marge Ryan stated on LinkedIn.

Global advocacy work by the company also extends to membership of UK Government advisory councils and other global organisations.