Chamber of Mines president Mike Teke
Photo by: Duane Daws
The fragmentation of junior mining in South Africa should be brought to an end through consolidation, Chamber of Mines of South Africa president Mike Teke said at the recent Junior Indaba conference.
Emphasising the strategic importance of exploration and the junior sectors of the mining industry, Teke encouraged junior miners to become members of the chamber. “Our doors are open,” he said.
Drawing attention to opportunities for juniors in South Africa and Africa, he said coal mining in South Africa’s Waterberg needed to be expedited and the way was open for juniors to play their part.
Once regulationhas been clarified around fracking, there would also be a role for juniors to play in shale gas in the Karoo.
He said that the world of exploration and juniors was alive and strong in Africa and he believed South Africans had the capability to go beyond its borders and to explore in Africa.
The 100-plus juniors exploring in Africa for a variety of commodities were mainly Australians and Canadians and he called for greater involvement of South African juniors on the continent.
As chairperson of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, he had many juniors asking for port allocation to export the coal they mined and State rail enterprise Transnet was looking into creating the required rail capacity.
If Richards Bay were taken to the level of 110-million tons of export capacity a year, he believed it would cater for all South Africans, including juniors.