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: Green hydrogen took another big step forward this week with the IDC preparing a position statement for COP27.

Creamer: COP27 is the United Nations Climate Change Conference that takes place in November from the 7th to the 18th in Egypt. The IDC, which is our Industrial Development Corporation, is compiling a position statement for presentation at COP27. We know that South Africa is in a very good position to produce this green hydrogen.

I don't think anyone expected so much demand to build up so quickly. We can see that Europe wants to get so much green hydrogen, United States now wants the same. South Africa has got superior sun, prime wind, and available land to produce green hydrogen competitively and there was a major  hydrogen economy discussion at the Johannesburg Country Club this week. Present at the discussion were local people and international people. The IDC presented there saying that South Africa has a number of green hydrogen projects under scrutiny.

The IDC spoke again of the big Boegoebaai project, in the Northern Cape. The Northern Cape environment is ideal for solar power. They are looking at a port there that will export the green hydrogen not only to Europe, but also Japan. Demand is building up and green hydrogen, of course, will be used in a multiplicity of things from steelmaking to driving your cars – a very wide range, but the concentration at the moment is on the truck elements and the bus elements. We have also got the Hydrogen Corridor Project coming from Limpopo to Gauteng to KwaZulu-Natal. That was discussed in great detail because already some South African companies are bidding on contracts to provide green hydrogen refuelling stations for passing trucks and buses. We know that Sasol is going to move from grey hydrogen into green hydrogen, so the IDC sees this as absolutely huge and fantastic as a job creator, and also an economic driver in South Africa.

Kamwendo: This week’s launch in China of a platinum group metals centre is a big boost for South Africa’s metals.

Creamer: China has seen the writing on the wall. They know that with green hydrogen, platinum plays a big role. They have been buying up platinum. You can see how they have got platinum from investors who have been holding metal in the form of exchange traded funds or ETFs in New York, and others with ETFs in Europe, selling that platinum on to China, which is building up a big stockpile of platinum.

It looks like China will probably end up with the world’s biggest platinum stockpile, which has not really been taken into account sufficiently by the countries of the West. We saw a massive announcement this week that China is going to have a platinum group metals centre in Shanghai. We saw beautiful pictures of the industrial zone environment there.

They are going to deal with every aspect of platinum group metals including the funding and ensuring that there is supply as well as research and development, because the world is going to need so much of platinum, especially the iridium platinum group metal, which is in short supply. They have got to try and research how you can use platinum group metals optimally to keep down the costs of fuel cells and electrolysers. This is a very important development in Shanghai.

Kamwendo: Major platinum company Implats is going ahead with a massive R50-billion capital expenditure programme.

Creamer: This is very important that the South African suppliers of platinum group metals respond to upcoming market demand by ensuring supply. You can see that Implats repeated their announcement that they are going to spend R50-billion on mine life extensions, on getting their processing plants correct. The other thing is that the platinum companies cannot afford to be hypocritical and must also reduce their own carbon footprints.

This is why Implats will be spending R4.5-billion on actually doing that. That will be through an initial 520 megawatts of green power – solar power and wind power. Implats owns platinum mines in Zimbabwe and these are actually ahead of their South African operations. Zimplats is already putting up 30 megawatts of solar power, which they will increase to 185 megawatts. They will be clean and green beyond what we can do, because Zimbabwe has already got hydropower, which is clean and green power, and its Zimplats mine will thus eventually have 100%, clean and green platinum group metals, which could result in a priced premium.

The South African mines are playing catch up. Implats’ Rustenburg mine will get about 300 megawatts, the Springs refinery 15 megawatts, the Marula mine 30 megawatts, which will collectively also help Eskom to meet its supply obligations.

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