Every Friday, SAfm speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly and this week, the interview is hosted by radio anchor Udo Carelse. Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Carelse: Platinum mining needs to grow to meet global demand, the huge platinum event in Shanghai has highlighted.

Creamer: It was a massive platinum week in Shanghai. It is great for platinum, but one of the warnings that came out of that is that platinum is on the decline, the prices are down. If these prices continue in this way, some of the mines will close prematurely, but even if there is not financial constraint, there is depletion on the way and we know that platinum is a hugely important metal, because coming up is the need to make sure that planet Earth is protected. With the green hydrogen that platinum can help to produce and the green hydrogen that can then give the clean electricity to the fuel cells that drive big trucks and buses and trains and everything you can think of, there is this warning coming through that we need to make sure that our platinum mining does not deplete faster than it should.

Carelse: Diamonds will soon be able to tell buyers their full verified story, from mine to finger. 

Creamer: This is incredible, because natural diamonds have had some competition from lab-grown diamonds, but now all of a sudden, these lab-grown diamonds, prices have fallen so desperately that there’s no margin left for the jewellers anymore. What they want to do now is to build up a very good buying case for natural diamonds. So, on a cloud, you will have all the information about the diamond you buy. You will know for instance, whether it is bought from Cullinan Diamond in Gauteng. How many people are employed there, whether the employees are well treated and the carbon footprint and every other detail to tell a good story about the diamond from mine to finger. This will be using all the artificial intelligence and all the new technology that we have got available at the moment.

Carelse: The R105-billion green hydrogen project in the Eastern Cape this week took yet another big step forward.

Creamer: This is an incredible project you know, and the person that is the chair of this Hive project is Thulani Gcabashe. Thulani is very well versed with energy in South Africa. He is a former CEO of Eskom. He was also the ex-chairman of Standard Bank. He has gone into this new era of green hydrogen to green ammonia and he is working with the world at the moment, because this is what will drive the ships. It is clean, and it will keep the maritime industry clean, but they are saying there are also many new opportunities in the fertiliser sector coming through. The demand situation will be such that there will be phase one, phase two, phase three, which is going to be great for the Eastern Cape, and it will keep us in the green in more ways than one in South Africa.

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