‘Over’ and ‘supply’ have been the two words that have been dominating the mining production discourse. Those in the commodity marketing know, like the ubiquitous Glencore, have been repeating for some time that it is not underdemand that has been causing the price problems, but rather oversupply by the mining industry itself. Mining Weekly again quizzed Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg during the company’s latest presentation of financial results and again his reply was that demand is not the problem. As reported on page 14 of this edition of Mining Weekly, from Glencore’s own experience, demand from China remains strong, and even when prices plummeted, overall demand remained fairly strong. The problem has been excessive supply. But that may now be at a point of change. With major diversified mining companies having pulled in the horns over a prolonged period, supply is showing signs of tightening, which should be good for commodity prices, provided inventories do not stand in the way. Capital expenditure in general has been slashed. What one big mining company would have on its project books is now more than all of them plan to spend and when it comes to seaborne coal, big exporter Indonesia has cut back to 350-million tonnes a year from a former 420-million tonnes a year and there are no big new coal mines coming on stream.

That top-performing precious-metals mining company Sibanye Gold is going all out to improve mine safety was made patently clear at its latest presentation of results, which saw the company’s massive 125% surge in operating profits to R5.3-billion take a firm back seat to the company’s visible determination to confront safety issues and to find a win-win solution to statutory Section 54 safety stoppages. Dismayed by an uncharacteristic spate of mineworker fatalities, Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman was rigid and fierce in demanding a turnaround. He made all present observe a safety moment and announced that he had mandated highly experienced mining operational executive and mechanical engineer Peter Turner to work alongside him in the CEO’s office to drive safe technology and to fight tooth and nail against the company’s “disappointing safety regression” that is undermining potential. A solution clearly lies in the all-inclusive buy-in of all stakeholders, including the Department of Mineral Resources, which must realise by now that halting deep gold mines for prolonged periods is itself creates technical issues that seldom lead to improving safety. For the sake of South Africa, stakeholders must find a way of implementing safety stoppages that improve safety without impacting on gold mining’s viability. Also see page 8 of this edition of Mining Weekly.

As is reported on page 17 of this edition of Mining Weekly, the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) has chosen the upcoming Electra Mining Africa show to offer mining industry stakeholders the opportunity to participate in three four-hour ‘high- impact forums’ with top industry figures about the future of the mining industry. The SAIMM’s Mining for the Future conference will run concurrently with the Electra Mining Africa trade show between September 12 and 13, at the Expo Centre, in Johannesburg.