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

Perlman: We have often spoken about the business opportunities that might come for South African companies once there is peace in the DRC. Seems there's some progress.

Creamer: Yes, South Africans are bidding a tender in the DRC without trepidation at all, despite the problems that have been reported in the north-east. They are bidding to move into the Katanga area in the south, which seems far safer. The tender invited has come from Gecamines, which is a State-run DRC mining house, which is looking to boost productivity and production in the DRC and sees foreign investment as the best way of doing that. They invited this tender and, of the 25 bidders, 22 are from South Africa, so that is quite a large contingent, along with one from Belgium and one from Zambia. On offer is the opportunity to refurbishf a limestone, lime and cement plant, which is about 120 km from Lubumbashi. Also being bid is an opportunity to beneficiate copper, copper wire and copper sheet. Quite sophisticated efforts there and South Africans showing a lot of keenness to get in and turn those to account.

Perlman: Something very different - aquaculture. I believe Malawi, Nigeria and Egypt are looking at developing that. It is an area that we haven't done much with on this continent.

Creamer: In South Africa, only 1 % of our fish come from aquaculture. On the African continent it is even worse, about 0,4 %. Asia in general and China in particular is the big producer, with Africa miniscule. But, the big Fish for Africa Summit that took place in Nigeria wants to change all that and has decided that more must be done in the field of aquaculture in Africa. They nominated Nigeria, Egypt and Malawi as investment destinations. The investment will be something like US$30-billion. An action plan has been set-up to begin before the end of this year and it includes building up capacity in Malawi, which already has a fish culture, 90 % of Malawi's protein coming from fish. They want to expand this now and make sure that Africa fish-farming also keeps abreast of world developments and also bring about technology transfer.

Perlman: Every conversation on the economy involves a conversation about energy. Biofuels is something we have spoken about before. Some developments, I believe, in regard to our use of biodiesel.

Creamer: Though the biggest driver of biofuels is the rising price of crude-oil, there are other local drivers and one of them is South Africa's commitment towards renewable energy, which we must meet by 2013. As a consequence, there is a plan on the drawing board now, driven by the government in the form of our Department of Science and Technology, to produce biodiesel locally. The hope is that from next year, possibly 1 % of the conventional diesel in our vehicles could contain biodiesel. The plant they have chosen is soya-bean. Soy is interesting because it also has a protein component and Africa is short of protein. We import a lot of oil-cake and other by-products, which local growth of soy can eliminate. The formula is that for every hectare of soyabean planted something like 320 litres of biodiesel can be extracted and two jobs created, those two jobs also being an important driver. Out on the periphery is another - from January 1, 2006, South Africans are going to need to have cleaner diesel, less of a sulphur content in the diesel, but less sulphur lowers the lubricity of the diesel, which biodiesel can restore. So the lubricity factor that biodiesel can bring is another plus, which could contribute to a quicker introduction of a small percentage of biodiesel in our normal diesel, as is the case elsewhere in the world.

Perlman: Fish and fuel and attempts to make money in the DRC, also interesting at the Coalface. 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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