JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Africa’s minerals are indispensable for a clean economy and these range from platinum-group metals (PGMs), which power hydrogen and fuel cells, to cobalt and manganese, which will drive battery storage, and rare earths, which enable solar and wind technologies.

Valterra Platinum CEO Craig Miller pointed this out during a B20 event covered by Mining Weekly on Friday.

Interestingly, Miller created great B20 and G20 excitement by travelling around in a platinum-catalysed hydrogen fuel cell electric Toyota Mirai car, which gave real-life visibility to the clean economy that this continent’s PGMs can bring to the entire world.

Seated next to Miller at the event was Toyota South Africa Motors CEO Andrew Kirby, who chaired the task force that drafted of the B20 South Africa Industrial Transformation and Innovation Task Force report to accelerate sustainable industrialisation.

In addition to Valterra Platinum and Toyota, the contributing companies within the ecosystem of the refuelling and chaffuering of B20 and G20 dignitaries in the Toyota Mirai included Sasol, which supplied the hydrogen, Air Products, which dispensed the hydrogen, Bosch, which provided the platinum-based fuel cells, and Bambili Energy, which provided Bosch with South Africa-made membrane electrode assemblies needed in the fuel cells. Another name on the advertisement banner was BMW, which in February last year drove media around Midrand in the BMW iX5 hydrogen fuel cell electric car.  

“Our opportunity, and I dare say our responsibility, extends far beyond mineral extraction. It is to transform our natural endowment into a foundation for industrial growth that supports technological innovation, as well as shared prosperity across the continent,” Miller highlighted at the event where Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretary-general Wamkele Mene noted forcefully that all the signals, from the private sector and the public sector, were telling Africa that “we have to seize this moment”.

Transformation beyond extraction, Miller pointed out, required the activation of a set of enablers that together formed the architecture of a thriving critical minerals ecosystem.

Needed first was an integrated forward-looking strategy embedded with clear and predictable rules and regulations.

Miller highlighted the next enablers as reliable feedstock, a fit-for-purpose infrastructure, affordable finance, a skilled workforce, and strong market access – the levers that determined whether value was created locally and at scale.

“And lastly, perception enablers, which are investor confidence and community confidence built on trust and transparency,” he added.

Market development, “which I know many of us are incredibly passionate about”, as well as market access, were singled out by Miller as the two most catalytic changes required to achieve industrial and economic development.

Market development and market access were, he said, certainly what would transform a mine into an industry and a resource into a sustainable future creation.

“Developing regional markets for our critical minerals – and for the technologies that use them – will shift Africa from being a source of raw materials to becoming a hub for refined metals, manufactured components and a clean-tech innovation.

“To do that, one of the things that is required is the support of AfCFTA, which connects 55 economies into a 1.4-billion-person market.

“It enables regional value chains in critical minerals, batteries and clean technologies.

“The AfCFTA provides the scale to attract capital, the rules to build investor confidence, and a platform to integrate small and medium-sized enterprises and innovators into the global supply chains.

“Too often we speak of investing in minerals as though this is primarily about mining, the act of extraction.

“We must instead see that investing in an entire value, a creating ecosystem, yes, mining, but also processing and marketing those minerals to final product is an imperative for the countries where we operate and for Africa's people.

“It requires us to invest in logistics and infrastructure and into institutions which train skilled people, which support professional services and marketing capacity, as well as the sophistication of suppliers, from small businesses to multinational technology firms.

“And critically, we have to enable this through the policy, through regulation, taxation, and a legal environment, legal environment that allows the ecosystem to thrive.

“So, if we can all align on capital, on skills, on policy around these enablers, Africa will not just fuel the world's transition, Africa will help lead it,” said Miller, who had commented earlier that Africa stood at the epicenter of the global transition.