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On-The-Air (03/06/2016)

3rd June 2016

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: Wonderful news is that the acid mine water curse can now be turned into Garden of Eden profit.

Creamer: This is fantastic, we have seen so many headlines about the acid water beneath Johannesburg and how this is going to be toxic for us and a huge cost center. We saw the government come up with a long-term plan that is going to R12-billion worth of expenditure. We didn’t hear much of the revenue stream that it could produce and now independent researchers out at Krugersdorp, Trailblazer Technologies, have cracked the code.

They have come up with a system where you can make a lot of money out of acid mine drainage (AMD). In fact, they are talking about a 30% return on investment, because what they want to get out of it is the crème de la crème of the fertiliser material, potassium nitrate, and also other materials for fertiliser that would really draw a retail price of R15 000 a ton. From moderate supplies of this you are getting 49 000 tons of potassium nitrate. Incredible job done by this company out in Krugersdorp, headed by John Bewsey. He has been looking at it for some time, because we know and we have said on this programme before the late Dr Robbie Robinson had this idea that there is money in muck.

He was out at Grootvlei mine and he wanted to do the processing of the water for the mine free as long as he could get what he found it it, which was cobalt, copper, nickel oxide and red ferric oxide that he said he could sell at a good profit. He could also put the water on an agricultural project for informal settlement and nearby and he will give 7 000 jobs. For some reasons the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) at the time chose a much more expensive alternative which fell flat on its face.

Nobody has actually interrogated that, because they didn’t realise the process they were looking for was so malodorous, it stank, so you couldn’t have it in an urban area. They had to close it down, because the people were going crazy. Now, John Bewsey is saying that they have cracked the code for AMD, but AMD from these mines is a little peanut when it comes to water. We have got to go into our dry arid areas where we have got enormous quantities of brackish water that you can do nothing with. Bewsey can turn it into a Garden of Eden, those areas in the Northern Cape, we can be growing nuts and flowers.

You have got the Upington area that has got an airport, so you can be flying these things out daily in to European markets, in to the London markets. So, they are saying give us a chance here, don’t spend this R10-billion that you are doing out in the various central basins.

The DWA showed media what they are doing out of Germiston and he is saying that it is not a bright idea that they have got. If he can go in there he can actually turn that into a revenue stream at this late stage. So, let us get in there and help the South African taxpayer not have to push out R12-billion on trying to clean this and get very dubious gypsum, which has a low value.

Kamwendo: Deputy Minerals Minister Godfrey Oliphant this week called for a massive turnaround of South Africa’s dying mining industry.

Creamer: A bit of wind of change coming through particularly from an upbeat Godfrey Oliphant. Speaking there in the shadow of Dr Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma, who was up from the African Union, was also at the Junior Indaba talking about the need for exploration, because the point that Godfrey Oliphant is making is that our mining industry will be dead without exploration. There is no exploration so how do you incentivise it?

He says let’s organise a new Migdett, which is what they did when they had the headwinds in 2008. The mining industry was in serious trouble and they brought in this Migdett, which is a growth scheme. He is saying that it involves labour, business and also government to try and promote exploration, as they have done in other mining jurisdictions.

When you go to Toronto you see these huge buildings which comes from mining through the exploration and flow-through scheme. It is an incentive that goes through to even the taxi driver. You can get a tax benefit because those people are taking risk on exploration.

Big risk and the world knows that and for some reason our Treasury doesn’t understand. They have been promising all sorts of things and came up with an alternative which has not worked. So Godfrey Oliphant is saying, let’s have a Migdett, otherwise our mining industry is doomed.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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