In this special edition of The Mining Pulse, James and Graeme are joined by Professor SW Jacobsz, a geotechnical engineer from the University of Pretoria who holds a PhD from Cambridge and researches liquefaction and failure triggers in tailings dams.

Following recent industry events, this episode unpacks the brutal engineering realities behind tailings dam stability.

Professor Jacobsz explains that tailings are the fine, liquid slurry left over after minerals are extracted, which are typically deposited into ring dikes or valleys.

The discussion covers the different construction methods, including the highly common upstream method, and why allowing the material to dry out and gain strength is critical to a dam's structural integrity.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

•Failure Mechanisms: An explanation of how dams fail, including overtopping from excess water, foundation failures from building over old deposits, and sudden liquefaction events.

•The Mechanics of Liquefaction: How loose, water-filled tailings can instantly lose strength and flow like a liquid when containment is removed.

•Operational Impact: How a breach results in an immediate halt to mining operations, alongside severe environmental and economic consequences.

•Dam Management: The critical importance of maintaining sufficient freeboard, controlling the rate of rise, and ensuring a competent Engineer of Record oversees the facility.

•Investigation Tools: Why geotechnical investigations must begin immediately to measure water pressures before they dissipate, and how satellite imagery is actively used to monitor moisture and movement.

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This week, Graeme flies solo to run a diagnostic on the massive administrative burden of corporate governance and compliance in the mining sector. He is joined by Anastasia Koskova, co-founder and CEO of beSirius, an AI platform designed specifically to handle certification, supplier due diligence, and regulatory requests for metals and mining companies.

For too long, critical health, safety, environmental, and human rights data has been trapped in PDFs and Excel spreadsheets. Anastasia explains how AI is fundamentally changing this by building "digital twins" of non-financial data, drastically reducing the time and cost associated with audits and reporting.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

•The Problem with ESG Data: Why relying on scattered paperwork and consultants for 18-month audit preparations is no longer sustainable.

•Sustainability Without the BS: Moving past greenwashing and PR fluff to deliver practical, financially viable compliance solutions.

•AI vs. Blockchain: How artificial intelligence is eating the mundane administrative work of mining governance.

•Data Security: The absolute necessity of closed-environment AI training and on-premises servers to protect highly sensitive corporate data.

•Empowering Junior Miners: How accessible AI tools are helping junior miners meet investor and off-take requirements without massive overhead.

A special thank you to our episode sponsor, Africa Mining IQ.

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In this episode of The Mining Pulse, James and Graeme are joined by Hansie van Vreden, CEO of Process Analytical Systems (PAS). We pull back the curtain on a critical but rarely discussed element of gold and copper processing: online wet chemical analysis.

For decades, plants have relied on manual titrations to measure cyanide and acid levels, leading to subjective readings and inefficient dosing. Hansie explains how automated analyzers run titrations continuously, measuring free cyanide, WAD cyanide, and acid concentration directly.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

•The Cost of Manual Titration: Why relying on operators to gauge color changes in a manual silver nitrate titration leads to inconsistent dosing.

•Financial & Environmental Risk: How overdosing cyanide by just 50 ppm can cost operations an extra $0.15 per ton, while underdosing risks overall gold recovery.

•WAD Cyanide & Environmental Compliance: Utilizing the picric acid method to accurately measure Weak Acid Dissociable (WAD) cyanide down to 20 parts per billion for detox management.

•Acid Control in Copper: Why directly measuring acid concentration rather than relying on pH as a proxy significantly cuts acid consumption in copper leaching.

•The Next Generation: A look at PAS's TAC 1000NG platform and the shift toward fully automated process control.

A special thank you to our episode sponsor, Africa Mining IQ.

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In this episode of The Mining Pulse, James and Graeme are joined by Bonique, Group Commercial Services Manager, and Dexter, Director at TradeStream. Together, they run a complete diagnostic on the state of African logistics, trade finance, and supply chain operations.

While the global appetite for African mining expansion is massive, the infrastructure required to support it often lags behind. Our guests break down the realities on the ground, revealing the severe bottlenecks, port constraints, and hidden financial risks that operators face when moving cargo across the continent.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

• The Road Freight Reality: Why 80% of trade into regions like the DRC still relies on roads, and the impact of 7-day border queues at Kasumbalesa.

• Border Integration: Unpacking the delays at Beitbridge caused by unintegrated government agency systems on the South African side.

• Sea Freight Constraints: Comparing the smoother West African shipping routes to the heavy congestion in East African ports like Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.

• Logistics Pricing: Understanding the 70% fixed vs. 30% variable cost structure, and why container demurrage penalties can exceed $4,000 to $5,000.

• Incoterm Dangers: Why assuming a CIF contract protects you is a dangerous game that can wipe out project profit margins once the cargo hits the vessel.

A special thank you to our episode sponsor, Africa Mining IQ. Subscribe today to stay on the pulse.

This week, we have a major Trans-Indian Ocean crossover event. James and Graeme are joined by Travis and JD, the founders of Australia's premier mining podcast, Money of Mine.

We contrast the investor-heavy focus of the Australian market with the operational and technical realities of the African mining sector to understand why listed Aussie cash is flooding the continent.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

• The Inspiration: How the Money of Mine team built an independent media business without taking funding from mining companies.

• The Capital Flow: Why Africa is far and away the second-largest destination for ASX resources companies.

• Sovereign Risk Diagnostic: Travis explains why stable fiscal regimes are mandatory for billion-dollar, 30-year mine life investments.

• Technology & Exploration: Why the failure rate for juniors might be improving with the integration of AI.

• The Challenge: Travis challenges James and Graeme to ditch the studio and record an episode live on a mine site.

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South Africa's economy was built on rocks and coal, yet the mining industry remains heavily misunderstood by the general public and global policymakers. This week, James and Graeme are joined by Vuslat Bayoğlu, Co-founder and Managing Director of Menar. Vuslat unpacks the complex realities of operating a diversified mid-tier mining company in today's volatile market.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

o Why optical political decisions regarding energy transitions are causing chaos in European markets.

o The current state of Eskom: How a 7,000 to 10,000 MW surplus is negatively impacting domestic coal producers.

o Transnet's recovery strategy, including opening the rail network to private train operating companies.

o The technical differences between thermal coal, coking coal, anthracite, and lignite.

o The reopening of Kuila Met and the critical importance of keeping the ferro-alloy smelting industry alive in South Africa.

A special thank you to Vuslat Bayoğlu and the team at Menar for joining us and sharing their invaluable insights.

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In this episode of The Mining Pulse, hosts James Agenbag and Graeme Smith sit down with Mosa Mabuza, CEO of the Council of Geoscience, to run a comprehensive reality check on South Africa's geological future. Overseeing the organization that acts as the custodian of the country's subsurface data, Mosa leverages his deep background, which started at Anglo American, to unpack the massive digital transformation happening in exploration.

Forget the narrative that South African mining is in a sunset phase—this conversation explores why 150 years of formalized mining has only scratched the surface.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

•The Exploration Investment Gap: Why OECD countries invest $65 per square kilometer in geology while Africa invests less than $5, and how the Council is working to close that gap.

•The Junior Mining Fund: How the Council of Geoscience and the IDC are providing concessionary grants and technical support to de-risk new exploration projects.

High-Resolution Mapping: The shift from 1:250,000 scale mapping to a detailed 1:50,000 scale, currently covering 20% of the country.

•The Virtual Core Library: How hyperspectral scanning of legacy core samples allows global geologists to inspect and rotate digital core imagery from anywhere in the world.

•Beyond Mining: The critical role of geoscience in infrastructure, including the seismic and tsunami modeling for the Koeberg power station extension.

Listen in to discover why geology remains the sharp end of the mining wedge and how to access the growing digital data portal.

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In Episode 19 of The Mining Pulse, hosts James Agenbag and Graeme Smith sit down with Martin Cassidy, Managing Director at Truco, to run the diagnostics on mining fluid handling systems.

A chemical engineer and De Beers process veteran, Martin is running one of the oldest companies in Gauteng, founded in 1892, and leverages his deep operational background to unpack the hidden vulnerabilities of a mine's piping network.

Every mine relies on kilometers of pipes moving everything from slurry and tailings to aggressive reagents; they're often treated as commodities and only noticed, unfortunately, when they fail.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

•Rigid vs. Rubber: Why handmade technical hoses are built to survive when rigid piping (HDPE/steel) cracks in minutes.

•The Cost of Failure: How to evaluate the total cost of ownership versus the catastrophic cost of failure, and the strategic mistake of viewing hoses as mere commodities.

•The STAMP Acronym: A robust diagnostic framework for hose selection (Size, Temp, App, Pressure, Ends, Delivery).

•Technical Innovation: Real-world case studies demonstrating how technical innovations, like ceramic liners, can reduce maintenance by 90%.

•A 130-Year Legacy: The heritage and ongoing evolution of Truco's unlisted, family-controlled African success story.

Listen in to discover how to stop chasing the cheapest hose and start engineering fluid resilience directly into your plant.

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In Episode 18 of The Mining Pulse, hosts James Agenbag and Graeme Smith sit down with Robert Grafen-Greaney, global Head of Mining at AON, to run a comprehensive reality check on the modern mining risk landscape.

Overseeing a massive $1.2 billion global mining insurance portfolio, Robert leverages his rare dual background as an on-the-ground geologist in East and West Africa and a corporate risk expert to unpack the hidden deal-killers facing the industry today.

Forget static risk registers—this conversation explores the dynamic, interconnected vulnerabilities that can instantly cripple an unhedged project.

Key Diagnostics Covered in This Episode:

•The Junior Miner Vulnerability: Why "one-site wonders" lack the organizational resilience to survive catastrophic tailings or environmental incidents that Tier 1 diversified majors handle with ease.

•The Big Tech Supply Chain Squeeze: How the explosive global demand for AI data centers has forced mining companies to compete directly with companies like Google and OpenAI for critical electrical transformers, doubling and tripling equipment lead times.

•Tech-Driven Risk Engineering: How leading operations use FLIR-equipped drones, satellite-integrated tailings monitoring, and predictive AI on mill drives to prevent costly plant fires and minimize down-time.

•The Corporate Mandate: Why mining executives must reposition resilience as a core production capability that protects financial growth, rather than viewing it as a compliance grudge purchase.

Listen in to discover how to insulate your operation from external volatility and ensure your next project is built for long-term bankability.

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Mike Beare (Co-Founder & COO, H5 Resources Limited)

How do you take a brownfield tin mine abandoned in the 1960s, overrun by thousands of artisanal miners, and transform it into a modern, zero-waste, low-carbon operation?

In this episode of the Founder Series on The Mining Pulse, we travel to Uganda to speak with Mike Beare, Co-Founder and COO of H5 Resources. H5 is currently undertaking the methodical rebuild of the Mwerasandu Tin Mine, operating an active alluvial plant while targeting a high-grade underground decline for Phase 2.

In this episode, we diagnose:

•Uganda as a Mining Jurisdiction: Why stable governance, cheap hydropower, and low labor costs make it an overlooked frontier for mineral investment.

•The Artisanal Challenge: Navigating the complex reality of 600+ artisanal miners operating on the license—and why aggressive eviction was abandoned in favor of formalization and future underground employment.

•Closure Up-Front: How H5 is executing a "zero-waste" strategy by repurposing alluvial clay for brick-making and selling sand/gravel as local construction material.

•The "Fabricator" Pitfall: Hard technical lessons learned when sourcing processing equipment from China, and why design IP and component quality matter more than price.

•The Carrier Metal Concept: Why you can't build a mine solely for critical minerals like Beryllium, and how Tin serves as the economic anchor to extract highly lucrative byproducts.

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