South Africa’s long-standing mining history has failed to bring with it the types of mineral exploration cultures that are prevalent in other main mining jurisdictions.
The bulk of the exploration done here – and then overwhelmingly by major mining companies – is what is referred to as brownfield exploration, which generally involves confirming prospectivity around existing operations that is already assumed to be there. What is absent is greenfield exploration, which involves exploring from scratch.
It is the greenfield opportunity that should now be enthusiastically embraced and incentivised, amid scope to generate far more small-cap junior mining companies. Canada’s Toronto Stock Exchange has 1 600 small caps, the Australian Stock Exchange 600, and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange a mere 12, which points to massive potential to do so much better on an exchange that was, after all, established more than 135 years ago as a mining capital raiser.