The taking of clear sustainability steps can make mining the darling of the investor community once again.

Mining cannot participate in anything that leaves the world a worse place and needs to be cognisant of what it takes to have a licence to operate.

Mining must have a smaller carbon footprint, use less water and communicate better about the raw materials it provides that are essential for climate-friendly electrification and a greener future.

Pallinghurst Group managing partner and cofounder Arne Frandsen made these points in a Zoom interview with Engineering News & Mining Weekly, while also speaking as chairperson of:

• South Africa’s Sedibelo Platinum Mines, the mining company that is about to implement the ultra-low-energy Kell technology at its Pilanesberg platinum mine, in the North West; and
• Canada’s Nouveau Monde Graphite, the Toronto-listed miner that is on its way to becoming the country’s first all-electric openpit operator at the Saint-Michel-des-Saints operation, in Quebec.

Kell is a partnership between South Africa’s State-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), Lifezone and Sedibelo Platinum Mines, while Pallinghurst’s South African interests also take in the Northern Cape’s Tshipi mine, which is South Africa’s largest exporter of manganese, and Quebec’s Nemaska Lithium, a battery-grade lithium hydroxide asset.

“We need to make the mining industry a responsible and forward-looking segment of the economy. Only then will mining retake its position as the darling of the investment community,” Frandsen said.

In South Africa, the company is also:

• considering converting to renewable energy at Pilanesberg, something that could also occur at Tshipi; and
• aspiring to use as little carbon as possible to mine platinum-group metals (PGMs), which are themselves sustainable metals that lower the vehicle emission levels on the roads of all the major cities of the world.

In Canada, the company is:

• 100% hydro-powered and taking steps to become a net-zero user of water; and
• planting trees on specially bought carbon-catchment forest land around the mine to lower carbon levels and offset employee transport that may not yet be electric.

“It’s a clear mission and I’m boringly consistent. What I say as the chairman in Canada, I also say as the chairman in South Africa, for Sedibelo. If we can demonstrate to the automakers that we’re extracting PGMs using as little carbon as possible, we’ll again be sitting in the front row of the class,” said Frandsen, who wants to ward off a possible future of investors deciding that “it’s not okay to burn tonnes and tonnes of coal in order to extract platinum”. PGM mining companies are currently overwhelmingly reliant on coal-fired electricity to mine, process, smelt and refine PGM ore.

As has been pointed out by Lifezone director and Kell developer Keith Liddell, South Africa’s current PGMs smelting and refining requires 5 000 GWh of Eskom power support a year. In the hypothetical case of Kell replacing the current pyrometallurgical processes, nearly 4 000 GWh a year could be returned to the South African power pool – virtually the capacity of the new Medupi power station, which is the eighth-largest coal-fired power station in the world.

“The IDC has been extremely supportive of Kell and it’s wonderful to see the South African government, through the IDC, committing to a greener future, and Kell is really that. Just think of it – Sedibelo will be using maybe 18% of the electricity compared to the conventional smelting and refining. That’s already an 82% saving. If you put that into how many tonnes of coal we’re not going to burn, this is very important,” said Frandsen.

“Everything we do in life cannot have a zero-carbon footprint, but we can minimise it and, if there is an alternative – and Kell is a proven, viable alternative – I think it is upon us to do so.

“You asked first how the mining industry can be the darling of the investor community. Well, if an investor sits down and looks and sees that, well, these platinum boys could change their tune . . . they could use another technology that would save the environment from an enormous amount of carbon, and yet they don't do it, how can you expect the investor to love mining?” he queried.

Health and Safety Stance Taken in 2006

Frandsen recalls that when he and former Gencor and BHP mining luminary Brian Gilbertson formed Pallinghurst in 2006, it took a very firm early stance on mine health and safety, fatalities and lost-time injuries (LTIs).

“We decided then that you cannot have people go to work and some of them get harmed and some of them don't come home. That was simply not okay, and that was 14 years ago.

“When we put Sedibelo together, it was clearly under a zero tolerance for LTIs and fatalities, and it has all been about trying to be efficient in the way that we use energy.

“The Kell process is a very good example of that. We have invested in Kell since 2012. So, for eight years, we’ve been investing in a technology that can use a fraction of the electricity being used in beneficiating and smelting of PGMs,” he said.

Then four years ago, it studied the battery electric vehicle trend and renewable energy and found that many were viewing it as a niche area and few were really focusing on it properly.

“Things like lithium and graphite were not really viewed as mainstream. So, I took my team back to the school bench and they had to start learning again.

“We also hired a number of PhDs and very clever people as metallurgists, mining engineers and geologists. That put us in a position where we could really look at these deposits and how to mine them,” Frandsen said.

As Nouveau Monde chairperson, he set out to become a zero carbon footprint miner, helped by 100% access to hydro-generated electricity.

“It’s green and has no carbon footprint, not only when it comes to beneficiation plants but also the mine itself. We’ll be the first 100% electrical openpit mine,” he said, referring to original-equipment manufacturers having until January 30 to submit their bids to electrify the graphite mine’s openpit optimally.

“We’re already getting bids in, and we’ll be able to say in the first quarter of [this] year who is going to provide the fleet for our mine. Even if you’re a relatively small company, you can make a difference by clearly articulating that going forward; it’s not okay to leave a carbon footprint, and it’s not okay to harm, and becoming a net zero water user is possible.”