It’s that time again on a Friday when SAfm's Update At Noon presents another Update From The Coal-Face with Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

SAfm: A top South African CEO has just returned from a global event with valuable new mining insight.

Creamer: Fantastic insight has been obtained by Craig Miller, the CEO of Valterra platinum, who has just returned from South Korea, where there were 200 CEOs in Seoul, and, as part of the Hydrogen Council, they debated the future of how platinum is going to be used in green hydrogen. Now the green hydrogen is used to power cars. We use petrol, we use diesel. What they were using to drive around Seoul was green hydrogen and why are we, as South Africans, are so happy is because South Africa is by far the biggest provider of platinum group metals in the world, and the green hydrogen is turned into electricity with the help of platinum. That electricity then powers the cars around in a way that is absolutely clean and green, and that is what we're hoping will take place in South Africa as well.

SAfm: The gold mine that has just opened 15 minutes away from the centre of Johannesburg is creating great excitement.

Creamer: It's huge excitement to see gold mining coming back to Johannesburg,the City of Gold, and what you must note about this this new West Wits gold mine is that it's called Qala Shallows and we know that Qala means just the beginning, just the start, and that's the message the Australians, who are funding this, emphasised at the official opening is that this is just the beginning, and the second word 'shallows' is also key because this mine is going to be unusually shallow. That's why it's called Qala Shallows. South African gold miners are not used to being only 800 metres down. What we are used to is being very many kilometres down. But West Wits is going to be at 800 metres with Qala Shallows and shallowness always means lower cost. Also fantastic is that they are mobilising to the rock face, and then they are drilling into virgin rock. Let me repeat virgin rock, untouched gold-bearing rock, rock that has not yet mined. We imagine that mining in the Greater Golden City means mining reef that is already scarred from earlier fragmentation and what many expect is that it will be the remaining gold that will be available and not untouched gold, as is the case with Qala Shallows, which has remained in a Central Witwatersrand area where mining began more than 100 years ago. But not so at Qala Shallows. This is rock that has not been mined yet, and that is what's so fantastic.

Martin Creamer will be back at the Coal-Face at the same time next Friday.