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 Northern Cape has a wealth of good quality copper ore hidden underground.

Creamer: Yes, and the great news this morning is that R180-million worth of investment is coming through and not only will they be finding more copper, but they are going to be able to open a mine, so it is really near term. It is the Prieska mine and of course, that used to be operated until 1991.

They are able now with these funds to bring it back, probably before the end of the year. So, that is always the best thing: to explore is one thing, but to actually be able to open an operation is another massive thing and if that gets going, it will provide the funds then for Okiep, which has validated very high grade copper, also this week. They have been drilling there and every time they drill, they validate that what they thought was there is actually there, and it is high-grade copper and copper is something that is very important in the world at the moment. With the electrification people need this copper, it is going to be in big demand and that is very good for South Africa's economy.

Kamwendo: South Africa’s R100-billion green hydrogen project this week took another big step forward.

Creamer: We have been watching that project and thinking, when are they going to have a final investment decision? Well, it looks like the final investment decision is coming up pretty soon, probably in the fourth quarter of this year. We have a final investment decision and that is in a massive investment of about R100-billion rand and that is for the Eastern Cape and very key players there, very credible players. So, you have got BuiltAfrica there. We know that BuiltAfrica is headed by Thulani Gcabashe.

We know Thulani Gcabashe is the former chairman of Standard Bank, but even more important than that, he was a former CEO of Eskom until 2008 and then he went into renewable energy. They will be using renewable energy to produce green hydrogen, they will then turn the green hydrogen into green ammonia. We see demand for that building up. Already ships are being built to take that in as a clean fuel and it is very important that marine pollution ends. This will bring an end to marine pollution. We saw in Rotterdam big activity at this moment. Rotterdam wants to import that and then spread it into higher to the Europe. China is big on it. So, hopefully this R100-billion project will go ahead before the end of the year. We already see they have ordered an electrolyzer, which is key to produce the hydrogen.

Kamwendo: Investment in platinum continues to be very strong.

Creamer: The World Platinum Investment Council has come through saying the investment demand for platinum is unbelievably strong. We saw that last year it was so strong, but they are talking about on top of that now they got about a 33% growth anticipation this year for platinum bar, platinum coin and people are wanting to get their hands on that, particularly China, because they know they are going to use it industrially. B

ut if they don't use it industrially, they will use it in jewellery and all the other activities, but that is also linked to AI now, because with these new data centres, data storage, they are going for hydrogen and they can get that powered by the platinum investment as well. So, the energy security is big. The supply, though, is not good and that always gets people going on the investment side, and that's why they can say investment demand for platinum is extremely strong.

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