There are many examples of the strong belief in the inevitable return of the upcycle in mining but few as good as the continued investment in education and mining research, despite the tough current downturn. In South Africa, funding for facilities for the advancement of research and development for mining is picking up, with corporates continuing to give generously to universities and schools. As can be read on page 20 of this edition of Mining Weekly, Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba, alongside São Tomé and Príncipe Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada, have inaugurated the Moanda School of Mining and Metallurgy, the first institution of its kind in the subregion. Interestingly, it is the outcome of a public–private partnership between the Gabonese government, French mining company Eramet’s Gabon-based subsidiary, Compagnie Minière de l’Ogooué, or Comilog, and the University of Nancy, in France, and will be accessible to students across the continent.
Education at other levels is also being supported. For example, as part of its Social and Labour Plan, precious metals mining company Sibanye Gold has handed over a state-of-the-art, multipurpose hall to the Free State Department of Education. The R6.2-million facility supports the department’s strategy of incentivising top-performing schools and, as Mining Weekly reports on page 14 of this edition, one of the beneficiary schools has achieved a 100% pass rate for three years running. The facility just built will also host a mathematics and science programme that Sibanye has been funding. The R25-million that Sibanye donated to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Johannesburg a couple of years ago is continuing to underpin capacity building, facility upgrades and student support in the mining and engineering faculties. Headed by CEO Neal Froneman, Sibanye has also committed itself to the provision of vacation work for university students needing practical experience in their fields of study. It is to Sibanye’s credit that it has 305 bursars, 6 321 learnerships, 6 673 local community representatives undergoing adult education and another 6 000 being provided with portable skills. Education, together with modernisation, will not only prepare mining for the next upturn but also enable the industry to shed its sunset tag by allowing it to mine safely at deeper levels, as well as access orebodies that are inaccessible when using conventional mining methods.
Helping, too, is the new vigour that is being exercised to resuscitate mining research. There is a new buzz around the old Chamber of Mines Research Organisation (Comro) facility, in Carlow Road, and hopes are also high that the new Wits Mining Institute will result in every advanced bit of available technology being applied in local mining.
Last week’s visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew attention once more to the potential development of Africa’s natural resources, which Vedanta Resources chairperson Anil Agarwal described as presenting significant opportunity. The visit drew attention once more to the wonderful zinc deposits that South Africa hosts in the Northern Cape, which have already attracted considerable Vedanta investment and which have the potential to be world-leading. Vedanta is channelling important funding into the long-delayed Gamsberg zinc project, which has also resulted in new life going the way of the Skorpion zinc refinery, in neighbouring Namibia. Last year may not have been an easy time to be starting a zinc mine but Vedanta’s timing is proving opportune.