Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe has officially opened the Phase 1 concentrate plant at the Steenkampskraal Monazite Mine (SMM), in the Western Cape, in the presence of Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa and Mineral and Petroleum Resources Deputy Minister Phumzile Mgcina. 

The plant opening marks the start of commercial mineral processing.

Phase 1 crushes and mills ore, then upgrades it to a monazite concentrate using gravity separation and flotation. SMM says it has secured a number of offtake agreements for its concentrate, with first shipments planned for export before the end of this year.

“This is the first commercial step on a road South Africa has already proved it can walk. In June, with Mintek, we produced high-purity mixed rare earth products and became the first African country in achieving this through a partnership between a mine and a national research institution.

“The plant now turns that science into a saleable monazite concentrate. The Ministers’ presence tells the market, and our communities, that beneficiation is no longer a slogan at Steenkampskraal. Production is under way,” said SMM executive chairperson Dr Enock Mathebula.

He noted that Steenkampskraal’s aim was not to export the resource in raw form, but to process, beneficiate and build manufacturing and skills in South Africa.

He credited the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa for its role in funding a project that expanded productive capacity but said the mine could not reach its full potential without the participation of government, science institutions, investors and communities.

Mantashe said South Africa must expand its robust beneficiation and manufacturing capabilities to add value at the point of production, stating that mineral wealth must support industrialisation, jobs and sustainable development.

Further, Ramokgopa described SMM as a national strategic asset.

“We own it as a country. South Africa already has a record of building complex technology, from Sasol to the pebble-bed modular reactor research. We have the scientific resources and now the opportunity for Steenkampskraal to be a game changer,” he commented.

SMM executive director Robbie Louw informed the Ministers that the SMM resource contained about 14.5% total rare earth oxides, the highest-known rare earth grade in the world, and about 2.1% thorium.

Louw said the high grade was the economic foundation of Phase 1, noting that far less rock needed to be mined and processed for each tonne of contained rare earths produced.

He explained that rare earths at SMM were hosted in monazite rather than fluoro-carbonates, so concentration was achieved using conventional gravity separation and flotation, developed from the mine’s 1950s flowsheet, refined and optimised in Steenkampskraal’s laboratories and confirmed by Mintek and other international research organisations.

“The process to beneficiate the monazite mineral through cracking was also developed in the Steenkampskraal laboratories and has been confirmed by Mintek and further confirmed by the Saskatchewan Research Council,” he added.

Further, Louw said domestic energy security, and a future energy-fuel pathway, were key to South Africa’s longer-term energy security.

“South Africa needs additional and reliable energy generation that provides baseload and strengthens the grid as wind and solar increase. Steenkampskraal gives the country a strategic indigenous thorium-energy resource, and a pathway to greater fuel-cycle sovereignty.

“The proposal is to use Koeberg to qualify thorium fuel, then deploy it progressively in a new nuclear fleet, including Thyspunt, and to anchor a South African thorium-fuel industry in domestic demand before looking to the export market which will include India and the world’s light-water reactor fleet.”

On technology, Louw said SMM had partnered with Thor Energy, an international thorium-fuel developer, whose oxide fuels had undergone multi-year irradiation testing in the Halden research reactor in Sweden.

On scale, he said, Steenkampskraal’s about 14 000 t of thorium had an electricity-generation potential broadly equivalent to 55-billion tonnes of South African power station coal.

In a mature, closed thorium fuel cycle, supplying electricity at roughly South Africa’s current national level would consume only about 30 t/y of thorium.

On that basis, he said, Steenkampskraal’s resource alone represents about 500 years of current South African electricity generation.

Louw said longer-term plans, with the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) ready to collaborate with SMM, also extended to thorium beneficiation and medical-isotope production, including energy production technology and medical applications.

Thorium daughter products are being assessed for targeted alpha therapy in cancer treatment.

“The capability has to be built here. That means scarce skills in metallurgy, chemistry, nuclear engineering, precision manufacturing, fuel qualification and nuclear regulation, and it means connecting what South Africa already has, Steenkampskraal, Mintek, Necsa, Eskom, the universities and the existing nuclear infrastructure, into one industrial system.

“Government enables and co-creates the anchor market, coordinates the institutions and removes barriers. Industry invests, builds, scales and commercialises,” he said.

Louw asked the Ministers to take five steps with the company.

This includes continued structured engagement so government and SMM share a view of the resource’s national strategic value, across rare earths, thorium and industrialisation; connecting existing national capability - Mintek, Necsa, Eskom and the relevant departments - and identifying where it can be strengthened; and using government relationships to support technology transfer, investment and market access with partner countries and international companies.

Other steps include evaluating the rare-earth and thorium pathways jointly, including the regulatory, technical and commercial steps required; and building from that relationship towards a shared roadmap for downstream processing, nuclear-fuel development, industrialisation and access to global markets.

He said the strategic prize was separated oxides and, in time, thorium products for energy and targeted alpha cancer therapy which depended on the partnerships.