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Gold refinery champions upliftment through beneficiation

CLASS OF 2015 The Ekurhuleni Jewellery Project has trained more than 50 people and assisted more than 20 incubatees since its inception in 2009

PRETTY USEFUL Aside from its aesthetic and financial uses, gold is also used in electronic equipment, as a protective lining and in dentistry and medical applications

21st July 2017

By: Nadine James

Features Deputy Editor

     

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Precious-metals smelting and refining complex Rand Refinery is committed to its socioeconomic upliftment initiatives, which are intrinsically linked to and furthered by its core aim of refining and then creating saleable gold products, or gold beneficiation, states Rand Refinery CE Praveen Baijnath.

The refinery believes that beneficiation drives such upliftment, as beneficiation of raw materials creates and supports jobs, as well as develops small enterprises, thereby immeasurably benefiting local communities.

Moreover, the outcomes of beneficiation also align with those set out in the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Codes of Good Practice, particularly skills and enterprise development.

Rand Refinery’s upliftment initiatives are centred around the Gold Zone, an on-site manufacturing centre aimed at becoming a hub for precious metals fabrication in South Africa for global export, while assisting local communities with skills development. The zone and its skills development programmes – the Intsika project and the Ekurhuleni Jewellery Project (EJP) – are located within the refinery’s Germiston precinct.

The Intsika project offers jewellery design and manufacturing training to formerly unemployed youth from the surrounding community.

EJP centre administration manager and mentor Jason Laing explains that the EJP is an enterprise development, industry training centre and jewellery manufacturing organisation.

The EJP offers the 12-month ‘Training for Trade’ programme, which has specific outcomes aligned with industry requirements and individual development. It caters for up to 20 historically disadvantaged youth and includes basic skills training for the production, polishing and final finishing of jewellery. “After they have been on the programme for six months, successful candidates can opt to be trained on the Mining Qualification Authority (MQA) four-year Goldsmith programme. The outcome of this is an internationally recognised trade test.”

Laing says, once training is completed, newly qualified artisans can either look for employment with established jewellery manufacturers or participate in the three-year incubator programme, which aims to equip them with the requisite skills to set up their own businesses – thereby developing and supporting small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs).

He notes that the EJP assists incubatees by providing them with a fully equipped jewellery manufacturing workshop where they can produce their own product. Further, incubatees are assigned business mentors who will provide them with basic entrepreneurial knowledge. In the interest of efficiency, incubatees can participate virtually using computers and other electronic devices to correspond with their mentor, or actively attend sessions on the premises.

The EJP has trained more than 50 people and assisted more than 20 incubatees since its inception in 2009.

Rand Refinery funds Instika and the EJP – which are also partially funded by the MQA, the Small Enterprise Development Agency and the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality – and provides precious metals for jewellery production training.

Gold Beneficiation
Rand Refinery develops and markets saleable gold products, and refines all South African mine production into globally saleable finished products, including gold bars of various sizes and gold products intended for jewellery manufacture, but the Krugerrand is probably the mainstay of South Africa’s gold beneficiation, notes Rand Refinery marketing executive head Richard Collocott. Rand Refinery is committed to providing gold to domestic jewellery manufacturers at a fair price to support the sustainability of this industry.

The refinery, which produces the Krugerrand in partnership with the South African Mint, is the sole supplier of bullion Krugerrands for retail investment locally and internationally and, in terms of gold minted coins, Collocott notes that the Krugerrand is the most widely held and actively traded bullion coin in the world. “Since its launch 50 years ago, about 60-million ounces of gold have been sold in this form.”

Collocott notes that the coin is popular in Western European markets such as Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Therefore, Rand Refinery is looking to expand market share in the US. In South Africa, Rand Refinery is involved in a marketing and awareness campaign to promote the benefits of gold coin investment. He notes that Asian countries typically prefer investment in the form of gold bars rather than gold coins, which has led to Rand Refinery’s introducing new bar products.

Other Uses of Gold

Collocott notes that gold is a highly efficient conductor that can carry tiny electrical charges and, because of this property, a small amount is found in almost all electronic devices, including cellphones, televisions and global positioning systems. “Because gold is such an efficient conductor of electrical charges, it is also often found in desktop and laptop computers to aid in transferring information quickly.”

Gold is used in dentistry in the “best” fillings, crowns, bridges and orthodontic appliances, “because the metal is chemically inert, easy to insert and nonallergenic”. In the medical field, small amounts of gold isotopes are used in certain radiation treatments and diagnosis, Collocott adds.

It is also used to line mechanical parts, conduct electricity and coat the interior of space vehicles to protect astronauts from infrared radiation and heat. He highlights that the visor of an astronaut’s helmet is also coated with a thin film of gold, as it “reflects much of the very intense solar radiation of space, protecting the astronaut’s eyes and skin”.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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