JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The results of a study on the modernisation of South African mining indicate that there is considerable room to increase innovation participation and intensity across the firms surveyed.

The finding was communicated at South Africa’s Mining Modernisation Showcase, where a strong partnership was visible between Minerals Council South Africa, the Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS), the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators’ specialised research unit within South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC-CeSTII), PwC Smart Mining, the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, and the National Advisory Council on Innovation. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

At the event, the modernisation of South Africa’s mining sector was described as being “an urgent strategic priority for the South African economy” amid South Africa ending up tenth in a ten-country global benchmarking exercise to understand the best practices being undertaken by other mining jurisdictions across the globe and see what lessons South Africa could implement from them.

Modernisation is about building a more efficient and resilient and competitive South African mining industry that can thrive in the future.

Dr Kgabo H Ramoroka, the senior research specialist of the HSRC-CeSTII shared findings on research, development, and innovation (RDI) activities within the South African mining and mining services sector from data between 2021 and 2023.

The RDI Survey Report, prepared jointly by HSRC-CeSTII and RIIS, established the extent of RDI activity in the mining sector, where it is concentrated, how firms engage in RDI activities to pursue modernisation, what capabilities exist at firm level and across the sector, and the possible opportunities for advancing modernisation.

Factors hindering the ability of the South Africa mining industry to be globally competitive in the mining space include declining ore grades, aging infrastructure, rising production costs, lack of skills, and the slow adoption of technology.

The core work of HSRC-CeSTII is collecting R&D data and when modernisation became a topical issue, it found itself sitting around the same table with RIIS and the Minerals Council amid South Africa finding itself unable to answer crucial questions despite mining being a cornerstone of its economy as a significant contributor to employment and exports.

“We selected 180 firms that were likely to be active in research, development, and innovation activities,” Ramoroka reported at the event covered by Mining Weekly.

The study embraced a two-phase survey approach and involved firms that form part of the database of the Minerals Council as well as enterprises that had already participated in RDI surveys and business innovation surveys.

The first phase takes in 180 profiled mining and mining services firms across the mining value chain and the second phase only 90 firms out of the 180 firms that reported being actively RDI engaged.

“This approach has enabled us to generate a robust picture of firm innovation behaviour and capabilities within the industry,” Ramoroka pointed out.

The survey of mining companies and mining services providers delivered broader insight across the value chain.

Commodity representation was from coal, platinum group minerals, gold, diamonds, iron-ore, manganese, copper, and other industrial minerals.

“But we didn't end there because from the start, we were curious about what modernisation really means, so we went into the field and also asked companies to provide us with their understanding of modernisation,” Ramoroka explained.

Five major themes emerged. First was safety enhancement, second the increased adoption of automation and advanced technologies, third the growing emphasis on data-driven operations and decision-making, fourth, the deployment of innovation to improve process efficiency and operations, and fifth environmental sustainability.

The overall findings suggest that mining firms are pursuing practical innovations that improve productivity, while also simultaneously supporting safer operations.

The findings show that innovation activity is present, but not yet widespread across the sector or the value chain.

Approximately 44% of firms introduced a new or significantly improved product or service, while 46% introduced a new or significantly improved process, which means that less than half of the surveyed firms were innovating during the study period.

“The results indicate that there is a solid foundation of innovation capacity within the sector, but also considerable room to increase innovation participation and intensity across the firms,” Ramoroka reported.

South Africa’s mining innovation priorities have been identified as:

• digital transformation and automation;
• exploration and mineral intelligence;
• research and development and intellectual property;
• decarbonisation and energy modernisation;
• skills for the future;
• inclusive and responsible innovation; and
• value addition and beneficiation.

The critical gap that needs urgent filling is implementation, funding and cross-sector coordination.