The research unit of State power utility Eskom has a pilot eutectic freeze crystallisation plant at its innovation centre in Gauteng that may enable the power utility to treat acid mine drainage for use in its plants. The demonstration plant, built at Eskom’s Research and Innovation Centre, south of Johannesburg, will begin operating within weeks. The initiative forms part of a far broader portfolio of research, testing and development initiatives being pursued by Eskom in areas as diverse as energy storage and renewable technologies, through to smart metering, lighting and coal analysis. The overall research programme, which is supported by a R500-million yearly budget, as well as some 400 scientists, technologists and researchers, is designed to offer technology solutions for key Eskom challenges, of which water is but one. In light of South Africa’s water constraints, as well as the importance of water to the production of electricity, the utility is pursuing various strategies to improve the way it consumes some 298-billion litres of water a year, using 1.39 ℓ of water for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated.

Advocacy group Amnesty International is alleging human rights abuses by one of the world’s largest cobalt producers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The report has also implicated several multinational companies for allowing conflict minerals into their products, as a result of not exercising due diligence. A Chinese company is accused of selling cobalt sourced from artisanal miners who make use of child labour to battery producers in China, Japan and South Korea, who, in turn, sell the batteries to high-profile multinational technology and automotive companies. The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that some 40 000 children work in mines in the DRC, where the State is being faulted for violating various international treaties that protect human rights. Artisanal mining resulted in the introduction of Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in the US in 2010, but cobalt was not included in the legislation as a conflict mineral.

The timing of the nigh-coming on line of the new Aureau gold mine, in Liberia, is copybook except for the TSX- and Aim-listed start-up missing its commercial entry. Snags with the gravity and carbon-in-leach circuits of the New Liberty mine, in Liberia, have resulted in a decision to defer declaring commercial production and the expectation of lower cash flows. The company has been in talks with its South African lenders about deferring the first debt repayment as it currently lacks sufficient cash to pay both the first debt repayment and continue paying suppliers. A plus point is that 19 shipments of gold doré from New Liberty to Switzerland have already resulted in 20 835 oz of refined gold at $1 113/oz.