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:

Kamendo: A project to mine the 500 000 oz of gold on the Soweto Cluster mine dump is at an advanced stage of planning.

Creamer: This is Pan African, and they also have the Mogali project nearby, and that has been brilliant. It's been below budget and ahead of schedule. And during that period, they've been studying the Soweto cluster and other clusters that they don't own, so they may even expand. But there we are sitting on 130-million tons of waste that people just drive past, but inside that are half a million ounces of solid gold, and we know that the price of gold has just gone through the roof. So, this is the time to extract that. They will know by the end of this month whether it's feasible to do so. And knowing Pan African they move very, very fast, and so hopefully they'll extract this half a million ounces of gold that have just been lying there in the Soweto cluster west of Johannesburg, close to Krugersdorp.

Kamwendo: A new mining method that will cut costs and slash mine waste is on the cards.

Creamer: This is coming through from African Rainbow Minerals, headed by Doctor Patrice Motsepe. He has a challenge at his platinum mine, Bakoni, you know, the reef is so narrow, when I say narrow, it's 60 centimetres, and if you're going to mine, that there's just too much waste. So, it is too costly. So, what they've done is they've got proudly South African technology now harnessed, where they will use tunnel boring to get to this narrow reef, and then they will cut the reef, which is really unheard of in South Africa, because you normally blast it, and that gets a lot of waste. So, they'll have a mechanical way of cutting this with minimum waste. Great safety, fantastic return, and they saying that all their expectations are not only being met but exceeded. So, by November, we should have the tunnelling starting. By March, we should have the cutting going, and then they will take a full decision in June. So that could be fantastic, because the platinum price is also up.

Kamwendo: It is now possible to use 70% less electricity to smelt South Africa’s metals and minerals.

Creamer: You know, that is unbelievable news, because we've got these smelters closing every day because of the high price of electricity. And along comes again, African Rainbow Minerals, headed by Doctor Patrice Motsepe. They go out to Machadodorp, they have done a lot of research and development of what they call smelt direct. The research and development is over. It's now actual. It's now real. They can cut the electricity price by 70% and again, you know, this brings all sorts of advantages, because if we can turn our chrome and our manganese into ferroalloys, it does so much, it lifts the price four times. It cuts down on the cost of export, because you are only exporting half of that. And South Africa's got all the chrome. It's got a lot of the manganese. So what they want to do is now to encourage someone to start investing, and I hope that happens soon.

Kamwendo: Thank you so much. Martin Creamer, will be back with another edition of at the Coalface same time next Friday, and please enjoy your weekend.