Every Friday, SAfm’s radio anchor Stephen Kirker speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kirker: South Africans were this week given a first-hand view of China’s fast-growing use of fuel cells, which is great news for platinum. I am excited about this from an environmental point of view, but it will be beneficial for the country.

Creamer: It will be fantastically beneficial for the country if the fuel cell demand, which is building up, drives more platinum demand. We know that the platinum price is in the doldrums at the moment, which spells bad news for South Africa, because we supply the bulk of platinum to the world.

We host 80% to 90% of the resources and reserves of platinum. So, it really helps is if there is demand for this product. A wonderful gesture now has been carried out by Anglo American Platinum and it has been praised by analysts all over the world, because what they did. They didn't do the usual thing of showing the supply side.

They took these analysts into China and showed them the demand side. They showed the demand building up for fuel cells, which really will protect Mother Nature at a time when we have great threats to climate. The only emission there is water. What they are saying is that the Chinese are probably setting a new pace for this demand.

We have seen California come in with fuel cell driven vehicles. They do want to promote this and they want to promote their hydrogen economy, because these fuel cells require hydrogen. We have seen it in Japan where even people living in flats now have fuel cells. They get their electricity from a fuel cell, which has platinum in it. But, going bigger now they feel that China, because of the huge volume of demand that can come from that country, can set a new pace.

Already, we see that vehicles are not allowed to come into the Beijing area, big vehicles like trucks, if they are fuelled by petrol and diesel. They can then only come in at night. The big incentive now, is that if you have a fuel cell driven vehicle and you have got that green number plate, you can come in any time of the day. This is really stimulating great interest in fuel cells, which will help South Africa, because it will drive the demand for platinum.

Kirker: Diamonds have lost the lustre with prices going down, but some wonderful news from the 116-year-old Cullinan Diamond Mine is that it still has another 50 years of mining left in it.

Creamer: Can you believe this? Diamonds were first discovered there about 45 km from Pretoria in 1902 at Cullinan, they began mining. A couple of years later, they found the biggest diamond ever discovered in the world to this day.

Now, if you open your hand and then you close it into a big fist, that is the size of the Cullinan diamond, which went into the Crown Jewels and which is still in the Crown Jewels in the British Isle. The queens jewels are from Cullinan. What is happening there is that even after 116 years they have still got a 50 year horizon ahead of it.

Of course, the mine was bought in 2008 by Petra Diamonds, which is listed in London. It was bought from De Beers and they had to invest to see that this continues. They put in a R5-billion investment to extend the life of Cullinan and the C-cut project now gives them clear view to 2030. But, if you look at the resources there that are still in the ground and you take a calculation, this will put the mine well into the next half century. It will be great for the region.

Kirker: South Africa’s forest products group Sappi confirmed this week that it is studying further expansion at its fast-growing mill in Kwazulu-Natal.

Creamer: This is Sappi Saiccor and again if I just open my jacket here and I look into the lining that lining that you see in your jacket is actually a dissolving fwood pulp that is the basis of that.

Although it is a textile, it is a wood based textile. What we see at Sappi Saiccor now in KwaZulu-Natal is that they want to invest even more than they told President Cyril Ramaphosa they would do at the Investment Conference. They were the first to stand up when people pledged R290-billion worth of projected investment that was unveiled there.

They were the first to say that they will put in R7,7-billion to expand Saiccor, but this week they began whispering in the ears of journalists that they think they can go even further than R7,7-billion and considering a further expansion, because of the demand for this dissolving wood pulp that is used a lot in textiles.

The growth is 5% a year, which is really a strong growth in making sure that this particular project can go even bigger than what they told the President.

Kirker: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.