Every Friday morning, SAfm's AMLive's radio anchor Caesar Molebatsi speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday's At the Coalface transcript:

Molebatsi: I'd like to welcome you to the 686th episode with Martin Creamer. Good morning Martin.

Creamer: Morning Caesar.

Molebatsi: Well, I understand that you say we've saved ourselves a little bit of cash, because R67-billion - that's what the government would have had to cough up if it had decided to nationalise South Africa's mines.

Creamer: If nationalisation of the mines were taking place when Julius Malema first mentioned it, we would have had a deficit in the mining game of 2009 of R67-billion and, of course, that has to be covered. If it was State-owned and State-operated that amount would have had to come from State coffers.

It is just an example and it is a real live example, highlighted at the annual general meeting at the Chamber of Mines of the risks are involved in mining. It is not all reward, there are also risks and you have got to remember that it is a cyclical business.

At the moment the cycle is up, but we were even interrupted by the global meltdown that led to the R67-billion shortfall, which thankfully has to then be recovered from retained earnings by the mines themselves and we don't have to look to the taxpayer to actually cough up for that.

We can see that if we have to continue to look at the taxpayer, there is going to be a limit to what you can do with mining and it should be more of an infinite horizon that we have for mining, so that we can grow. To the advocates of nationalisation we say "here is a sober account of what it could cost you".

Molebatsi: Fuel-from-coal giant Sasol is to generate 800 MW of its own electricity. How do they do that?

Creamer: Sasol by 2011 will be generating 800 MW of its own electricity. It is just set-up two open-cycle gas turbines and it will use some of the gas coming up from Mozambique that is meant to be used to produce petrol and diesel of course.

Now they are using some of it to produce 280 MW of that electricity partly by open-cycle and then by combined-cycle using heat that is generated as well.

So, we have this concern around South Africa at the moment that there will be the shortfall between 2011 and 2016 and that Eskom, as it builds these massive big power stations, are still building them before they can actually supply the additional amount.

We see the private sector coming to the party by various initiatives, one of them by Sasol, which is going to benefit by selling some of its 800 MW to about 200 MW that it will offer back to Eskom and be given a price for it which is slightly higher then the Eskom tariff, as an incentive. They are one of the first people to have nailed the power purchase agreement down.

Molebatsi: Well it seems like this is becoming a trend for some of these mega organisations in South Africa, where they actually do begin to find ways to provide for their own energy.

Creamer: Absolutely, and if you go out to Metalloys near Vereeniging, you will see that for a long time now they have been producing 200 MW of their own power and they need that in their Metalloy business. That has come from gas, which we don't really like, carbon monoxide, which they fire up to create that heat to produce the energy.

Molebatsi: The world over, the search is on for rare-earth elements - and South Africa as joined in on the rush.

Creamer: That's right. China supplies more then 90% of the world's rare-earth elements, which are really in demand at the moment, because we see them used in high-tech situations, but very much now we see them used in green situations for wind turbines and electric cars and even things likes of guided missiles and radar.

Now that the Chinese have cutback and said they don't want to export all of the rare-earth elements, because they want to keep some of them for themselves, we see now the world scrambling for rare-earth elements.

Among the scramblers are South Africa and the Canadians have come in with the South Africans in the Western Cape and they are looking to resuscitating a mine at Steenkampskraal, that was in the past owned by Anglo American and produced monazite from which you can get one of these rare-earth elements.

Not that all of them are rare, because one them is cerium, which is about the 25th most abundant element. We see the price of that has gone up seven fold in as many months.

Molebatsi: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he'll be back with us at the same time next week.