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

Kamwendo: South Africa’s biggest gold mining company is investing R3-billion in its South African operations.

Creamer: This is very good news. South Africa's biggest gold mining company is Harmony Gold and it sees that it can invest in the short term R3-billion. So, that investment is happening as we speak, because we find that gold that is deeper is still very valuable. Depth gold has high grade and they have got two very high-grade mines. The one is Mponeng and the other is Moab Khotsong and R2-billion of the R3-billion is going immediately into the deepening of that. We saw the grades that came out of there were excellent and with the high gold price you get such a good return. So, shareholders really benefitted with a much bigger dividend. But, there is also gold on surface and the same Harmony Gold has got those dumps, particularly in the Free State, that they can recover the gold from. They are putting a billion rand into that. That is going to extend the life of that operation, which recovers the gold from the dumps, by 16 years. The investment in the deep level mines, which are west of Johannesburg, keeps them going for another 20 years each. So, it’s very good news for our region. We need this sort of investment. Minerals Council South Africa has been saying there must be much more investment in mining. Mining is a very critical contributor to our economy and this is a good lead that has been given by Harmony Gold.

Kamwendo: Northam Platinum big solar power thrust is set to save the company R700-million a year.

Creamer: It’s amazing how much you can save when you go into solar power and wind power. Now, you’re not only creating green electrons, which is very good for the planet and preserving the environment, but you’re saving yourself a lot of money at the same time. This R700-million is not 100%, in other words, they have still got a long way to go and they will go a long way to get a bigger percentage. You’re looking at 50% to 60% already saving you R700-million a year. So, it gives you the idea of how incentivised these mining companies are to go into solar and wind energy space. Also, they have got the land and we see it Zondereinde, where this company, Northam Platinum is actually building it they have allocated land there and they are getting going. All the people who are doing it talk to you about doing it as fast as possible, because of the savings.

Kamwendo: The platinum deficit is far worse than predicted, the World Platinum Investment Council reported this week.

Creamer:  It is incredible that you have got a deficit like this and yet you have got low prices. This is the irony of the platinum group metals industry, which is so important to us. South Africa’s platinum mining companies are struggling with low prices when there is such a deficit of what is going to be this year a million ounces. How can this be? It is all about what people have got in their vaults. They have got platinum in the vaults and they are delivering these onto the market and because they bought them a long time ago, they are prepared to sell them at a lower price. But excellently, they have only got about four months more demand cover it is estimated of the platinum that they store in these warehouses, in exchanges in New York, and then hopefully we are going to see a turnaround of the platinum price, which is so important for this country. I mean, you are just listening to every one of these platinum mines saying how they are struggling. They shouldn't be, because the demand is there and we can see from World Platinum saying it is a huge demand, yet not a good price.

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