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’s biggest is to deploy new technology that turns mine waste into wealth.

Creamer: This is Kumba Iron Ore. It's listed on our Johannesburg Stock Exchange as part of the Anglo American group. It is now led, for the first time, by a woman, Mpumi Zikalala. She's hit the ground running. She comes in from De Beers, where she also had experience in Canada, and she's going ahead with this process that turns mine waste into valuable material.

Already, you have a situation where the quality of the Kumba Iron Ore is very, very high. It's called lumpy ore, and it earns a price premium. Now, with adding what they call the ultra-high dense media separation or UHDMS plant, it will actually add value to that high quality, and cut unit costs. That's not the only thing that Mpumi Zikalala is very keen on promoting there. She's also pushing ahead with exploration, and we know how prospective the Northern Cape is.

They've already got some very good activity going there as a result exploration, and they are spending R7-billion now on bringing through a project that is the result of an exploration discovery. In addition, they are also putting in great effort for the community. When it comes to community development, the mining groups normally give community enterprise development a big focus, but what they've also done here is they've introduced contract mining for the community – that is, getting the community involved in their own core business of mining, and a R1.6-billion contract has been awarded to the community, with particularly women and youth helping Kumba to mine.

In addition, the company is supplying billions of litres of water to the local authorities, in a water-stressed area, and not charging a cent for it. The municipality can then on-sell it and gain funds to further help to the community.

Kamwendo: Platinum miners are on the cusp of a big breakthrough into the use of platinum group metals in big batteries.

Creamer: Platinum has always been a key provider of clean air, because it catalyses the exhaust fumes of vehicles that have internal combustion engines. It's been doing that for decades and will continue to do it.

Then it moved into fuel-cell electric vehicles with trucks, trains, buses, and ships that have fuel-cells that convert green hydrogen into electricity. It is very clean, and people want this, because it mitigates against climate change. Now, they're going further into battery electric vehicles, which was not their area. This is where Elon Musk moved in with his electric battery vehicles, and there was no use of platinum group metals in these. But now, with research being done by a Canadian platinum firm, and South Africa’s Anglo American Platinum, they're coming through with the use of platinum group metals in batteries.

This lowers the weight of the battery, because it's got more energy density. This is just what these batteries need because they are pretty heavy and that's why they are a bit restrictive, and you have to have smaller vehicles. But that seems now on the cusp of changing. Having the platinum group metals also in the battery electric vehicles is poised to be a massive breakthrough.

In addition, platinum group metals remain at the centre of green hydrogen, which also requires platinum group metals to be generated. South Africa’s hosting of these platinum group metals – we are the biggest host of platinum group metals in the world – has huge potential, and you can see the prices moving up because demand is foreseen for our platinum group metals.

Kamwendo: South Africa’s biggest miner, Anglo American, has produced its best-ever financial results.

Creamer: Yes, Anglo American has reached the crest of the wave right now with their financial results at their highest point as CEO Mark Cutifani bows out. These were his swansong results, and they represent peak performance. I've got to say that we acknowledge the great work that Mark Cutifani has done. He's an Australian, with an Australian head but an African heart.

He's really changed this mining industry beyond belief and pushed Anglo right ahead of the BHPs, right ahead of Rio Tinto’s, as Anglo is now the best big global mining company by value, and it is thanks to tremendous leadership from Mark Cutifani. In April, he hands over to Duncan Wanblad, a South African. I can remember interviewing Duncan’s father, who was also in mining, with Johannesburg Consolidated Investments. So, the mining development thrust will continue, along with the building of community enterprises and making sure that the communities around the mines get heavily involved.

Also, Anglo is bringing green hydrogen into our South Africa environment. Anglo will be launching the world’s biggest green hydrogen mine truck later this year. The company has also got the green hydrogen corridor developing. So, they are taking us into the new era of clean energy and also making sure that we get all the wind energy we can from our east and west coasts, and all the sun energy we can from the hot Northern Cape, which will energize their own mines and then some. So, we say goodbye to Mark Cutifani. I think he's done a fantastic job for us.

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