Fingers are being crossed that the new Mining Precinct, in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, will safeguard the future of South Africa’s mining industry through the development of new people-centred technology and techniques that prepare mines for modern mining methods.

Many are hoping that the Mining Precinct will succeed in arresting the current general decline of the local mining industry in South Africa and help it overcome significant obstacles in the future, which stem from narrower orebodies and mines having to venture to greater depths to find reserves.

The public–private partnership at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research site, in Carlow road, is carefully moving on from where the historic Chamber of Mines Research Organisation stopped in 1990.

But what must be realised is that massive strides have been taken since then and the once intellectual-property-obsessed mining sector has had to opt for open innovation, with minimal ownership strings attached.

While many may criticise mining for allowing nonmining industries to streak ahead, mining is now in a position to adopt the wide range of technologies that have been proven and have already matured in the hands of other sectors.

When one sees pictures of agricultural robots, dubbed agbots, planting seeds in fields, one realises that the technology is there for mineral extraction to be done far more precisely and far less wastefully that it is being done now.

Many in the know are forecasting that technology is destined to unleash a wave of mining innovation in ways that are not excessively capital intensive and that can make use of existing mining and processing infrastructure.

Immediately available is coarse-particle technology that slashes water use and multiplies output from existing plant.

At orebody level, microwave preconditioning of rock, non- explosive rock breakage and the comprehensive use of information technology are being mentioned.

But, given the agbot era in agriculture, swarm robotic mining cannot be that far off as a means of taking expensive nonpay waste right out of the extraction equation.

What is important is that mining avoids overemphasis of technology and underemphasis of holistic length-and-breadth modernisation that stretches from ore at depth to host governments still sitting in ivory tower peaks.

In fact, Anglo American technical director Tony O’Neill, who is one of the people closest to mining’s new vision, provides this valuable insight:

“Our FutureSmart Mining programme is about far more than technologies alone. It is end-to-end innovation in its broadest sense, addressing all aspects of sustain- ability for the business – safety, health, the environment, the needs of our communities and host governments, and the reliable delivery of our products to customers. Those that innovate and are agile will thrive in this industry. That is mining’s new future.” (Also see page 20 of this edition of MiningWeekly).