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Gauteng Business 2018-19 edition

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  • Gauteng
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  • Mining
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A unique guide to business and investment in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The 2018/19 edition of Gauteng Business is the 10th issue of this highly successful publication that has established itself as the premier business and investment guide for the Gauteng Province. In addition to the regular articles providing insight into each of the key economic sectors of the province, there are special features on the concept of the Urban Development Zone which underpins the successful urban growth strategy that is being pursued in the province, and on the importance of airports in regional economic thinking. To complement the extensive local, national and international distribution of the print edition, the full content can also be viewed online at www.globalafricanetwork.com under e-books. Updated information on Gauteng is also available through our monthly e-newsletter, which you can subscribe to online, in addition to our complementary business-to-business titles that cover all nine provinces as well as our flagship South African Business title.

OVERVIEW Mining

OVERVIEW Mining Government wants broader participation in the mining sector. SECTOR HIGHLIGHTS Exports to SADC countries are in the spotlight. • Petra is expanding diamond production. The national government’s Phakisa programme is to be applied to mining. Intended to fast-track solutions to development problems, an Operation Mining Phakisa Lab has been set up to create concrete plans. Similarly, the Provincial Government of Gauteng has initiated Action Labs in the mining sector. These are meetings where private and public participants in the mining sector and its value chain discuss possible improvements, partnerships and innovations. One of the Action Labs focus areas is to strengthen the export of mining services and mining equipment to SADC countries, including the Copperbelt. The creation and support of mining-sector SMMEs is another important component of the plan to create a broader base for mining and mineral beneficiation. AngloGold Ashanti has reduced its South African holdings to a tailings plant and one mine (Mponeng in Gauteng) but remains a major gold producer with assets in five other African countries, South America and Australia. In early 2018, CEO Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan resigned to join Vedanta Resources, which has recently purchased a large zinc operation in South Africa. Gold Fields is engaged in a long-term expansion project at its mechanised South Deep gold mine, which has a life-of-mine to the year 2094. Gold Fields in 2013 spun off some of its older mines to a new company called Sibanye Gold. That company has gone on to become a diversified miner called Sibanye Stillwater, with a strong focus on platinum. The gold sector has shed several thousand jobs in the last five years. Part of the reason for Gold Fields wanting to unbundle was political uncertainty. A proposed new mining charter (Mining Charter 3) did not go down well with mining companies, and the new President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, has appointed a new mining minister to come up with a better arrangement. The level of black ownership and whether that percentage must be “topped up” every time a black shareholder sells, are just two of the contentious issues. A court ruling in favour of “onceempowered, always-empowered” will probably not be the end of the debate. The Chamber of Mines says that the value of BBBEE deals since the year 2000 is R205-billion. GAUTENG BUSINESS 2018/19 38

OVERVIEW The mining industry’s employer body is the Chamber of Mines. The Chamber’s address in Hollard Street, Marshalltown, Johannesburg, reflects the fact that the city of Johannesburg was founded on gold. All of the bodies that oversee the South African mining industry are located in Gauteng. The mining industry itself is looking at new ways of doing business. Guided by the Zambezi Protocol, the Chamber of Mines wants mining to be more positive and constructive, working better with the communities in which it operates. New Chamber CEO Mxolisi Mgojo is simultaneously leading his company, Exxaro Resources, on a programme to make mining sustainable through measures such as water sharing with local communities and finding ways to help communities gain access to energy. A 400km gold reef stretching across most of Gauteng and some of the neighbouring provinces was for many years the backbone of South Africa’s mining industry. Gold production has generally been in decline for some years, with older mines such as AngloGold’s TauTau either closing unprofitable shafts or being put on care and maintenance (Kopanang). Global demand for gold has see-sawed in recent years. Cullinan, east of Pretoria, is the site of one of the greatest finds in diamond-mining history. The eponymous diamond was cut into several smaller diamonds, including the 530-carat Great Star of Africa. Today, Petra Diamonds continues to mine Cullinan as one of its four South African projects. Petra Diamond’s Cullinan mine has an orebody that contains a diamond resource of 194 Mcts which is why Petra is expanding with a goal of annual production of 2.2 Mcts by 2019. A R1.6-billion processing plant is being built at Cullinan, with a throughput capacity of 6 Mtpa. ONLINE RESOURCES Chamber of Mines: www.chamberofmines.org.za Council for Geoscience: www.geoscience.org.za Mining Qualifications Authority: www.mqa.org.za Mintek: www.mintek.co.za National Department of Mineral Resources: www.dmr.gov.za Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: www.saimm.co.za South African Minerals Processing Cluster: www.saceec.com/sampec Research Gauteng is home to most of the research and training bodies associated with mining. AECI, the explosives and chemicals company which has been involved in mining in South Africa almost as long as there has been a mining industry, supports the Virtual Reality Mine Design Centre located at the University of Pretoria. Mintek is an autonomous body based in Randburg which receives about 30% of its budget from the Department of Mineral Resources. The balance comes from joint ventures with privatesector partners, or is earned in research and development income, the sale of services or products and from technology licensing agreements. An example of collaboration is Project AuTEK which has found a way of getting gold catalysts to play a role in improving fuel-cell efficiency. Mintek teamed up with the Department of Science and Technology and AngloGold Ashanti. The University of Witwatersrand School of Mining (shown on the opposite page) has two houses that are partfunded by mining houses and equipment suppliers including Xstrata, Lonmin, De Beers, Anglo Platinum and Sandvik. Pretoria University has a Department of Mining Engineering, the University of South Africa offers three national diplomas in minerelated fields, the University of Johannesburg has minesurveying courses and the Vaal and Tshwane universities of technology have engineering faculties. 39 GAUTENG BUSINESS 2018/19

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