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Prices weigh heavily on top 40, no work for mining graduates, research revolution urged

12th June 2015

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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Global mining’s tough 2014 fight is poised to escalate into a brawl this year as companies struggle worldwide to emerge from depressed markets, says PwC Africa mining head Michal Kotze, who reports on page 17 of this edition of Mining Weekly that mining has been left on the ropes by government intervention, industry conflicts, fierce competition, plummeting prices and rising shareholder activism. Helping the industry to face weak price headwinds include reduced capital expenditure, higher production and currency devaluation, PwC’s latest ‘Mine’ report shows. Indicative of the hardships being faced in South Africa is that not a single South Africa company features in this year’s top 40 PwC analysis, which highlights price falls of 50% in iron-ore, 75% in coal, 80% in copper and 40% in oil, with only gold and nickel seeing prices remain near those of January 2014.

After decades of undersupply, mining engineering graduates are now struggling to find employment, with some of the best graduates being cut loose on graduation, despite having received bursaries throughout their undergraduate studies. Read on page 12 of this edition of Mining Weekly of Professor Emeritus Huw Phillips commenting in the latest edition of the Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) that “this once great industry’s” low ebb has graduates resorting to finding jobs anywhere they can. Phillips is pleading for foresight to ensure that mining is well positioned for the next upturn and draws attention to the quality of the ten papers published as part of this year’s SAIMM student colloquium and reminds that mining is a cyclic business and also that ‘the darkest hour is just before dawn’.

Veteran mining research commentator Dr RE (Robbie) Robinson, the one-time National Institute for Metallurgy, now Mintek, director and regular commentator in the SAIMM journal, has been quick to latch onto the jobless mining graduate disappointment and call for a research revolution to keep the surfeit of jobless graduates in the industry. Read on page 12 of this edition of Mining Weekly of Robinson outlining how the creation of mining clusters can make use of the graduates, who, he says, have received some of the best training in the world: up-to-date visual training in three dimensions, using computer techniques and extending beyond mining into extraction metallurgy, civil, geological and also agricultural engineering. Robinson’s vision, which he has detailed in innumerable SAIMM articles, involves turning inert slimes dames to profitable and job-creating account. He cites the examples of how the now defunct Johannesburg Consolidated Investments (JCI) ran a chemicals company that used ion-exchange technology to neutralise acid mine drainage (AMD) and recover minerals for sale from mine dumps, including gypsum, and how JCI established a highly profitable fruit-growing, packaging and exporting business on waste mine land at its Western Areas mine, near Carletonville. All this can be repeated, Robinson says, through the establishment of mining clusters that will not only keep the jobless graduates active through normal mining activities, but also embrace schools and training centres, patronised by the people on the mines and perhaps visitors from overseas and many others. To watch a video in which Robinson speaks about his vision for jobless mining engineering graduates, scan the barcode with your phone’s QR reader, or go to Video Reports on www.miningweekly.com.

To watch Creamer Media's latest video reports, click here
 

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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