JUNIOR INDABA: Bernard Swanepoel an optimist on whether SA mining a sunrise or sunset industry for graduates

  • 📰 dailymaverick
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 64 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 29%
  • Publisher: 84%

United States News News

United States United States Latest News,United States United States Headlines

Is the sun rising or setting on the South African mining industry? It’s a frequently asked question, but mining sectors are built from exploration and ‘junior’ or small companies. And South Africa has a woeful pipeline on this front.

Bernard Swanepoel, the former Harmony Gold CEO who now spends his time running mining conferences through his outfit Resources 4 Africa, is an optimist if nothing else. One of his regular events is the Junior Indaba in Johannesburg. The fact that this conference keeps on going is testimony to signs of life – or at least interest – in the junior mining space in South Africa.

“Eventually, if you are to sustain your mining industry and your mining industry jobs, you must discover and develop new mines. Today’s mining graduates will be 40 in about 18 years,” Miller told the conference. “So how many mines will still be operating in South Africa in 18 years? In 2040, in other words? How many mining jobs will there be?

Other foreign measures and domestic data sets paint the same bleak picture. And exploration is a high-risk business dominated by junior companies that depend on venture capital. “Why would you go into mining now in South Africa? It’s a completely policy-driven problem,” James Lorimer, the DA’s shadow minister for mineral resources, toldThis is reflected, for example, in listed companies. The conference heard that the Toronto Stock Exchange had 1,600 small-cap mining companies or juniors, while 600 are listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange. The JSE has 12 – barely above single digits.

Steenkampskraal Holdings chairman Trevor Blench said a mining right for the project was granted in 2010, but the region – Namaqualand – is remote and dry, so the company explored for underwater sources and hit pay dirt. An application for a water-use licence was then made to the Department of Water Affairs in 2012.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 3. in US

United States United States Latest News, United States United States Headlines