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 advancing copper mining cluster is streaking ahead under new leadership.

Creamer: It is fantastic that we have had Graham Briggs return to mining. He is now the new CEO of Copper360. Copper360 has got a dozen copper assets there ready to be turned into metal that you can sell. They have started with Rietberg. They getting that copper ore out at the moment, so that they can sell the copper. Incoming now is the former Harmony Gold CEO Graham Briggs. He is a battle-tested seasoned campaigner. He has got these dozen mines now that he can turn to account. What they are hoping is that they are going to get that as a hub, a copper hub in the Northern Province, which is very prospective. People going into that province are pleasantly surprised about how prospective our Northern Cape is. It could become a real new big mining base for copper, which the world wants at the moment. So the timing is great.

Kamwendo: Our government and our mining industry simply must find common pull-together direction – and quickly

Creamer: That is absolutely essential. We had a draft Amendment Bill come out with a strategy for critical metals. When business looked at it, when Minerals Council South Africa looked at it, they said, we can't see any of our input in here. We have had a lot of discussion, but nothing is visible. Somehow, government and business need to be aligned, particularly at this time where Minerals Council is reaching out to make a massive contribution. Mining can make a massive contribution, but we have got to have a common direction. Thankfully, this Bill is a draft Bill, so they can sit down and work it out. But this has to be done quickly, because coming through as well is the mining cadastre. This cadastre means you can go on your computer and you can find out what assets are available, what prospecting rights you can apply for. We have always based our system on the shape of farms and then you would get your license around the shape of the farm. Canadians have come in and redesigned this cadastre, and it is now going to come in a grid shape, so you will have a red light, a yellow light and a green light. People are just worried about this, because they feel that maybe the grid is going to take in people beyond the traditional farm-shaped right and then you have got go and negotiate and you might be obsessed with yellow lights rather than green lights. I hope that isn't the case. They’re starting in the Western Cape, and we will see how it goes there. Hopefully it goes very smoothly, because that cadastre could have investment really moving in very fast for exploration if it works well.

Kamwendo: The global green hydrogen market is bursting out all over, which is great news for South Africa’s platinum.

Creamer: It is great news for South Africa's platinum, but we have been obsessed with mobility. When it comes to green hydrogen, we have been focusing on what green hydrogen you can put into a car. You can have a fuel cell, you can have your electrolyser and fuel cell, and they all use platinum. But we haven't really focused on what is already happening in hydrogen, in other words the hydrogen market that already exists as a replacement market. This is because the world currently consumes 100-million tons of grey hydrogen that is polluting the earth like crazy. You have even got Sasol putting out this grey hydrogen. They have got 2% of the what the world produces. What the French are now saying this is that the easiest thing in the world is to replace that grey hydrogen, which is really giving the world hell in terms of pollution, with green hydrogen. They describe it as the easiest thing in the world. We seem to have had big problems with it and they say that represents 23% of the green hydrogen market. So, all the time we getting new opportunities, because that grey hydrogen goes into inks, it goes into glues, it goes into paints and all sorts of chemical products and we should try and change it, and make things green, like the French are doing right now.

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