Little-publicised exploration and development com- pany Incubex Minerals, which is internally funded and fully black-empowered, is pursuing early-stage brownfield projects for upscaling into standalone mining operations.

The company, formed out of the unbundling of the mining interests of the JSE-listed Sephaku, is already mining silica and developing a potentially import-replacing wollastonite prospect.

The Sephaku unbundling placed a strong network of empowered individuals into Incubex, which has given the company a head start over some of its junior peers, Incubex COO Dr John Bristow tells Mining Weekly in a video interview.

Chaired by Sephaku Holdings CEO Dr Lelau Mohuba, Incubex develops early-stage brownfield projects in established neighbourhoods where mineral rights are available.

It is mining silica on a small scale north of Rustenburg and is developing a wollastonite deposit at Garies, in the Northern Cape.

“It’s very much trial mining and the fine-tuning of a small plant that’s already on site and built by the previous owner,” Bristow says of its pursuit of wollastonite, a fibrous noncarcinogenic replacement for asbestos.

Currently, South Africa imports a considerable volume of wollastonite, which is used to make brake pads and to strengthen cement, and the local mining of it would create the potential for import replacement, local beneficiation and job creation.

On a site west of Sun City, the company has also begun work on attapulgite, a clay that has medical, cement, paint and beauty applications.

“We’re a fully black-empowered company with strong HDSA (historically disadvantaged South African) credentials and we have used internal funds to do the initial work on these projects.

“Hopefully, we’ll get them to a production stage and then take them through to being standalone cash generating businesses, with the cash being put back into Incubex to develop other projects,” says Bristow, a former De Beers stalwart who successfully developed the Gem and Rockwell alluvial-diamond mining companies.