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On-The-Air (21/03/2014)

On-The-Air (14/03/2014)

21st March 2014

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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

Moodley: A R3-billion marketing programme is under way to boost the use of South Africa’s strike-hit platinum.

Creamer: They have thrown R1-billion directly, Anglo American Platinum, which is the biggest of these platinum producers, put R1-billion up for marketing.

They have been insisting that you have got to market, we have been to Eurocentric. We saw when Europe collapsed the platinum market collapsed so they are trying to get it more spread. They are also attracting co-investments, so they want to turn this into a R3-billion fund through co-investments.

We see already 800 installations on our cell phone towers are now fuel-celled. This is the start of platinum and platinum group metals going into fuel-cells. We see that with the latest thrust going outside of the country as well, Premus of the US is already part of this marketing programme.

They develop flow batteries, which take up the iridium and ruthenium, because it is not just platinum that we produce it is a whole suite of metals. That will be fantastic to shave off peak electricity uses and also to store electricity from renewable energy while the sun is shining so that you can use it when it is dark.

Some fantastic things coming up. South Africa government is also involved, Science and Technology putting money in there. There is Clean Energy Investments in South Africa working. There is also Ballard in Canada developing fuel cells.

It is going to be stationary fuel cells we see, but in vehicles we see Hyundai and Toyota coming through with fuel cells, which mean platinum and only platinum, which is fantastic. This is a way of getting into the energy space and producing clean energy through this marketing programme, which is essential.

Moodley: A host of new metals are being extracted from South Africa’s Bushveld, which is stamping its authority as the richest piece of mineral real estate on the planet.

Creamer: There is a host of new metals being extracted from South Africa’s Bushveld, which is stamping its authority as the richest piece of mineral estate on the planet. We know that it provides 75% of the platinum, 75% of the chrome, 50% of vanadium, but we don't think of it for iron-ore.

When we think of iron-ore we think Sishen. There is only 3-billion tons there, but 26-billion tons in the Bushveld right up with titanium, vanadium and even phosphate. We see now the London-listed Bushveld Minerals going in there with some very good geological brains and turning this to account.

It fits hand-in-glove now with South Africa’s beneficiation policy, because you can’t just take this iron-ore out and put it on a train and send it out, it has got titanium in, vanadium in and some of the parts of the mine have got phosphate in, so they have got to do this in a way that is vertically integrated to get credits from each one.

They have already rushed off to Treasury and said that they must reduce their royalties because they are not doing a beneficiation job. They are getting rid of all the impediments that used to be in the way to extract all these metals and they are succeeding now in turning this into a possible very valuable iron province.

Moodley: How do mining companies get licences to mine all the other metals, because steel doesn't just exist by itself it has got other metals mixed with it. Can mining companies mine anything within that area, even if it is not a metal that they are interested in?

Creamer: When they apply for their licence they must specify what they are going for, because by that stage you get your prospector’s licence and do your drilling and find out what is there. You must claim everything otherwise someone else can claim beneath you, as we have seen happen.

Moodley: 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.

 

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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