Every Friday, SAfm’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: South Africa’s new Platinum Valley will showcase 3D platinum printing as its first project.

Creamer: We have been waiting for the Platinum Valley for a long time. It is to mimic Silicone Valley in the US, but using platinum. They are starting with 3D platinum printing, which is related to platinum jewellery. We know that investment in platinum jewellery gives you the quickest return. This is what will be a quick start, but they are not going to stop there.

They are hoping to go across the full spectrum of platinum beneficiation and also link up with all the other initiatives that are taking place. We see at OR Tambo there is going to be a special economic zone (SEZ) and people are looking at investing there to make membranes that are coated with platinum. These are in big demand for fuel cells. They are choosing OR Tambo, because they want to be close to the vault where platinum is kept and take the platinum to the plant and then to the plane.

Then initially begin exporting, because the demand for these stacks that are used in the platinum fuel cell are building very fast as hydrogen adoption takes off around the world. You see it popping up just about everywhere at the moment, which is going to be good. We need to have someone champion this, because we have got a lot of fragmented activity around the place. Now that Mark Barnes is free from the post office, perhaps he can consider coming in and championing this. It was Elon Musk, another South African, who championed the electric vehicle and he burst through the ceiling. Of course, he has opened the door for a lot of activity now in the hydrogen and fuel cell space.

Kamwendo: The tempo of new project development is hotting up with a big chrome expansion and the opening of a fluorspar mine.

Creamer: We have been starved of projects and all of a sudden now we see them coming through. There is a new optimism and we saw the Tharisa company, which is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, their board approved a R780-million chrome project just near Brits. It will be a very interesting project, because they are using the fines, they are using the mine waste, which we know as tailings and they are making sure that they get every last bit of chrome out of that using their own technology.

We know that Tharisa is led by the Pouroulis family. They have always been very innovative when it comes to technology. So, they are hoping to get another 400 000 tonnes a year of chrome using a technology that can convert fines to saleable chromium. They have already got markets for that. At the same time we see activity in the fluorspar space just outside Pretoria.

There was the official opening that is R1,7-million invested there. It is hardly finished and they are already looking at the next fluorspar mine and they are doing a feasibility on that already. In a few years we will see a lot of activity in the fluorspar space, which is again associated with the world going green.

Kamwendo: Pressure is being applied to force platinum mining companies to go green – or run the risk of losing business.  

Creamer: Platinum group metals (PGM’s) have always been associated with cleaning the world’s air. Cleaning the air of major cities. So, of course, people look upon this as being a metal that is produced cleanly as well, but when they get to the mines in South Africa they say you are polluting and dirtying everything, we should be looking at another metal.

That is the sort of thing that we don’t want, because we saw with Elon Musk that they can switch to lithium and all sorts of things if they take a new strategy. The mining companies themselves are now taking steps to make sure that they are mining in a way that is green, because it keeps their reputation up. It is the same with diamonds, you couldn’t have come from terrible war circumstances.

Now, the platinum industry is saying that they will have fuel cells on their mind and vehicles that are powered by platinum catalysed fuel cells that don’t have any emissions at all, so if people come and see how we mine they know we are also part of this green revolution in the world taking power from the sun and turning it back into electricity to drive all our equipment on the mine sites and to be involved with the operational processing side, but ensuring that no one can point a finger saying that you are a pollutant and going off using another metal.

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