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: Zambia has signed an agreement with a Canadian company aimed at boosting mining and exploration.

Creamer: The Canadian company is Barrick and the leader of that company is a South African Dr Mark Bristow. This is a fantastic boost for Zambia. The sort of boost that we need here. Now, we going to have a cadastre soon, that means it is a system where you know where to explore for new metals. That is when we need some of these South Africans that are now global to come and help us here, because it is an immediate growth of your economy when you start exploration drilling and if you know where minerals are likely to be, it helps you get the mining going. We have seen Barrick go into Zambia. The Lumwana mine was not even making a profit. They bought that and they have already turned it into a massive profit, but they have gone further. They have got a super pit that has been quickly permitted by Zambia, a massive contribution. The talent that has developed is also spread around Africa, so it is very important to get things going here and a lot of our South Africans that are global could help us.

Kamwendo: There is growing consensus that BRICS can play a new-era role in creating mineral wealth in Africa.

Creamer: We are in a new era and we have got to look everywhere we can and it is now called BRICS Plus. So, we are the ‘S’ and there were five in it. There are now 10 in it. Two more from Africa, more from the Middle East. There are two letters in there, the C and the S that are very important. The S is South Africa. It punches way above its weight. The C is China, which, in terms of advancing to make sure that you add value to your metals and minerals, is way ahead of the world, I can tell you. The next closest to it is South Africa. If we work together, we can actually do beneficiation in Africa and the Mining Indaba just heard Africa is not prepared to just dig out the ore, put it in a train and send it off to the port and export it. We have got too big a population here. You have got to add value within the continent. I think BRICS now, representing half of the world's population and nearly a quarter of the world’s economy, can do a lot. We must really work to grow our economy as well.

Kamwendo: The big aluminium producer in KwaZulu-Natal is planning to go ‘green’ to attract higher prices globally.

Creamer: It has got to do so, because if it doesn't do so and it continues to use coal-fired power, it will lose out on market share and will be paid lower prices. Already, we can see big activity in aluminium, all sorts of tariffs being put on it. We need to make sure that the 31 000 people there who rely on Hillside Aluminium in KwaZulu-Natal and the R10-billion that Hillside Aluminium gives to our GDP remains. That can be done by turning it green. The owners there are really going all out to make sure that they do not suffer a penalty, because they are coal-fired power driven in smelting their aluminium in South Africa’s Richards Bay.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing, editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly and he’ll be back At the Coalface at the same time next Friday.