Gauteng Business 2018-19 edition

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.
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GAUTENG BUSINESS 2018/19