Launched in 2016 as a way of recognising key individuals who have significantly influenced the South African mining industry over many years, the Joburg Indaba Mining Hall of Fame has inducted two new members.

They are Harmony Gold CEO and executive director Peter Steenkamp, who has 30 years’ experience in the mining industry; and Southern Palladium chairperson and World Platinum Investment Council founding chairperson Roger Baxter, who has more than 30 years’ advocacy and strategy experience in the global, regional and local business and mining sectors.

Baxter was also previously CEO of the Minerals Council South Africa.

The induction took place on October 1, ahead of the twelfth Joburg Indaba on October 2 and 3, and was attended by Business Unity South Africa president Mxolisi Mgojo, Tronox director Sipho Nkosi, and Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe.

The Joburg Indaba is an industry platform featuring mining CEOs, government, investors and industry experts who debate the critical issues facing the mining sector in South Africa, including the current challenges and opportunities in the industry, how different commodities and sectors are performing, current energy challenges, the investment landscape, environmental, social and governance issues, modernisation, as well as health and safety.

ROGER BAXTER
Baxter became CEO of the Chamber of Mines, now the Minerals Council South Africa, in 2014, having previously served as its senior economist.

"Affable on surface, Baxter's gift for number recall made plain the national pillage under way in the name of radical economic transformation. Faced with political rhetoric, he enumerated the decline in State-owned Eskom and, later in his tenure, Transnet which he rightly identified as an even greater liability. Eskom was the country's heart, Transnet were its veins. Without them the body politic would perish – a message media lapped up as it was important it should. All society needed to know the grift under way in the country's founding economy.

"Baxter didn't get everything right. He abandoned his favoured value of 'engagement' when in 2017 he boycotted the Joburg Indaba when Mosebenzi Zwane was the country's mines minister. But at least he stood for something when other parts of society had fallen silent. Perhaps equally questionable was the public show of camaraderie with Zwane's successor and current mines minister, Gwede Mantashe. Roger styled himself 'Frank' to Gwede's 'Candid'. Those private conversations may have had some traction but Baxter fought the council's best campaign in the courts, where it mattered," the Joburg Indaba states. 

In 2021, the Minerals Council scored an important victory for the country's investment reputation by winning a High Court judgment that helped settle the 'once-empowered, always empowered' dispute.

The Joburg Indaba points out that among other developments, the council also established a junior mining desk, where Baxter finds himself now, as the chairperson of a palladium project.

PETER STEENKAMP
The Junior Indaba notes that, when Steenkamp steps down as Harmony CEO later this year, he will leave behind a company in excellent shape.

It attributes the success of the company, in part, to Harmony's acquisition of the Mponeng and Moab Khotsong mines from AngloGold Ashanti in recent years.

"Before those deals, Steenkamp was a man under pressure. Scepticism was high following his first presentation to analysts in 2015 when he promised to lift Harmony's gold production by 50% to 1.5-million ounces a year. How, some said, could the guy who presided over the ill-fated Pamodzi Gold, breathe new life into Harmony? The fact that Steenkamp had a successful stint as CEO of Sasol Mining and was formerly Harmony's COO was but a passing detail.

"His first acquisition seemed a bit of a head scratcher. The purchase, for a dollar, of Hidden Valley in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to which Steenkamp then allocated $180-million in mine redevelopment. While Hidden Valley hasn't been the most cooperative asset over the years, the transaction set the tone for mergers and acquisitions (M&A), most of which was in South Africa.

"The benefit of buying AngloGold's mines is that it allowed Steenkamp to take more critical views of expensive production elsewhere in the portfolio. Bambanani mine was closed in 2022, while the extension of Tshepong was shelved. In true Harmony style, other mines scheduled for closure, have somehow found a way to carry on. Kusasalethu should have been closed this year but it continues. Masimong has had a two-year life for the last four years," the Joburg Indaba says.

It adds that the improved cash generation from Mponeng, in particular, has enabled Harmony to approve its extension, which will keep it operating to 2044 and help contribute to 1.5-million ounces a year in total group output for the next decade or two.

Mine Waste Solutions, also bought from AngloGold has set the scene for Harmony's surface mining strategy that may be embellished with surface gold from the Free State – a development that could see the province producing gold for decades more.

"Steenkamp also put in place an offshore strategy long sought by Harmony. While the enormous PNG asset Wafi Golpu is yet to take shape, the purchase of Eva Copper, in Australia, gives Harmony both geographic and commodity diversity. The project has still to be built so let's hold the ticker tape but, for now, Steenkamp enters the Mining Hall of Fame as the guy who stared down Harmony's reputation for ex-growth to emerge as the gold industry's M&A king," the Joburg Indaba comments.