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: South Africa this week becomes the home base of the standards for all mine dumps in the world.

Creamer: South Africa is seen as the place where mine dumps are really treated properly, and they don't lead to safety issues normally and they don't lead to environmental issues, because of the way we tackle things. So, South Africa is being selected as the base from which the International Council on Mining and Metals, with the United Nations and an investment company, will spread new standards throughout the world.

This will take place, now, in the week that happened six years ago; there were 270 people that were killed virtually instantly when a tailings dam burst in Brazil and flooded over them and they drowned in the mine muck. People don't want this to happen anywhere in the world again, and they feel what has happened in South Africa is that South Africa actually creates wealth out of these dumps. We have seen it with DRDGOLD out at Ergo and we have seen it now with Harmony Gold, doing a lot of recovery of gold from these dumps, which gives them a lot of money to do things properly.

Also, Pan African Resources in Krugersdorp. We have shone the light and now they are saying this is where we will base and this is where we will set the standards and make sure that the whole world follows a good standard from cradle to grave when it comes to mining, otherwise they won't get investment.

Kamwendo: A celebrated old gold mine is being brought back to life west of Johannesburg.

Creamer: In the late 1930s Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine was formed. Then in the 40s, they started development, but it was closed in 2013 and thousands of people lost their jobs. Now, a company, Auris, wants to get it going in a long-term fashion again. So they have linked up with an American company and they have got the blessing this week from the Security Council in the United States, which deals with stock exchange listings.

They are hoping to list on the NASDAQ and raise quite a lot of capital, plough it into this to make sure that the Blyvoor Gold is long life. There is also a surface treatment that will take place, because there are also tailings dumps there. They are seeing a good return on the investment, hoping to be listed in the US and getting the blessing from the SEC in the US.

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