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

Bikitsha: The European Union is partnering the Southern African Development Community to offer no less than 101 mining opportunities in Southern Africa. Tell us more.

Creamer: The Southern African region is being seen as being prospective by the European Union and they want to promote an activity in economics and one of the important ones beyond agriculture is mining. So, they have gathered together 101 projects, which they can showcase now to international investors and that will be done in Zambia and will take place from November 29 to December 1 when one thousand one-on-one interfaces will take place to try and promote the go-ahead for these 101 projects. They are fairly conservative in what they think will go ahead. They believe 8% and 10% of these 101 projects will go-ahead, which would still be a boost for the economies of these regions. Other projects will be taken to the next level and the most enthusiastic responded has been Zambia with 37 projects offering, showing just how keen they are on developing their mining industry, followed by Tanzania with 18 offerings and projects for international investors and then Malawi with 13. South Africa with only two which was probably a result of our fairly complex minerals legislation. But, they are hoping that many of these 101 projects for mining activity will go-ahead in Southern Africa.

Bikitsha: South African biofuels protagonist Dr Robbie Robinson has a plan to create a million jobs - and millions of litres of biofuels a day - through small-lot agriculture. When does that get under way?

Creamer: This should be under way now in my view. Sustainability is a very important thing in South Africa. We still rely on industries that have finite horizons. I am talking about the mining industry particularly that is one of the generators of our foreign exchange. In 30-years, some of these big mines will be dead and buried. One of the groups, Gold Fields, has looked at this sustainability of their operations and started what they call 'living gold'. That is the growing of roses that are now exported. That should be something that is sustainable. What Dr Robbie Robinson is looking for is sustainability, job creation and the matching of the demand for energy. He would like to use a lot of the facilitation that the mining industry can give. Its land and water. Mines manage enormous quantities of water and create effluent. He wants to use this effluent in a drip irrigation concept over 200 000 ha to create a million jobs and enormous amounts of biofuels, which the country is going to need. This is the 'green fuel' we are talking about from the growing of maize. No one has really contested his calculations, he has been doing this research for a long time and I believe with the mining industry now having to go into sustainable development - and we see a lot of effort from the mining industry now to look at the sustainable development - this is the type of project that should be considered to make sure that we don't have ghost towns in the future.

Bikitsha: Six South African construction companies are bidding to build an airport on one of the last territories on earth without one - the island of St Helena.

Creamer: Yes, you can still only get to the island of St Helena by boat and that boat sails between the UK, St Helena, Cape Town and it keeps doing its rounds for the 7 500 people on St Helena island. But, the British government has now decided that this is a place that needs and airport. Many South African companies have bid, not only to build the airport but also to operate it on a sustainable basis. What has happened is that they have realised that the risk is great so all three of the South African bidders pulled out of this tender. Now, the UK has sweetened the tender and lowered the risks and come out again, because they are quite determined that there should be an airport on the island of St Helena by 2011. This, of course, will change the whole nature of that island, which would create a lot of economic activity and tourism and all sorts of new potential. This is the plan now to get people in to build and operate this airport and have already spoken to airline industry, which is keen on supporting an airport on St Helena island that can cope with large aircraft.

Bikitsha: 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.

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