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: The first in-person Johannesburg Stock Exchange listing since Covid took place this week amid mining companies in particular being urged to use the exchange.

Creamer: Yes, you know, there are so many more small cap mining companies that are registered and listed in other mining jurisdictions. Canada has 1 600 of them, Sydney has 600 of them. We have got a miniscule 12. Now there is an effort to try and get these smaller mining companies in. We saw Southern Palladium list this week. We know that there are others lined up. Even though these are secondary listings and they are listed in primary situations in Australia and the UK and Canada, the secondary listing is important for us. They have made it much easier for these companies to list. So it is a rebuilding of the stock exchange, a turning of the tide, and hopefully we will see a lot more listings.

Kamwendo: Good news for the economy is that two key mining projects are at the ready to proceed at a moment’s notice.

Creamer: And also important metals and minerals. In the Northern Cape you have got the Prieska copper and zinc mine, which can in the next six months, get a go ahead and actually be rebuilt in 19 months. This was a an old rich mine, which they are going to recover it. Speaking in Australia this week there is a lot of encouragement for getting going in the Northern Cape. But, also in the Western Cape, there is the important Steenkampskraal where there is rare earths. The world is needing a lot of rare earths at the moment and they are also ready to go ahead. There has just been a bit of a holdup, because another company wanted to explore on the site where mining right has already been awarded. So, a little bit of a delay, but it seems that again, London money coming through and also a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange will go ahead with very important rare earths mining.

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