Service Issue 85

S
mining
For better or worse, the “beneficiation” of
minerals is back on the African agenda
Minerals beneficiation is back on the South African and wider African mining agenda. While the goal of adding value to
mineral resources is laudable, it is a farce if it is hindered by power and logistics problems.
By Ed Stoddard
TThe word “beneficiation” hardly rolls off the tongue, and its usage
is limited. The Oxford English Dictionary says it has “0.09 occurrences
per million words in modern written English”, a rarity which perhaps
explains why I have yet to find a spellcheck that recognises it.
But in South Africa, it is used more frequently, and for better or
worse, it is back on the agenda.
Depending on the source consulted, the term broadly refers to
the process of treating ore to prepare it for smelting. Some take it
further and see it as “adding value” to mineral products beyond the
material that emerges from the smelter.
In South Africa, it has been “beneficiated” to a grade where it
means that rather than exporting platinum group metals (PGMs),
you build catalytic converters here. Or an entire car from scratch.
President Cyril Ramaphosa raised the subject when he delivered
the ANC’s annual 8 January statement in Mbombela, saying
the party’s youth league had made it clear that “we are tired of
being a country that exports all our mineral resources… without
beneficiating them. And they have said, ‘Please let us beneficiate
our minerals’.”
Ramaphosa was providing a summary of the statement, which –
surprisingly – did not use the word “beneficiation”.
“Too many of our natural resources are still exported in raw
form and then imported back into South Africa as manufactured
goods. The jobs and profits involved in manufacturing these goods
are passed on to other countries, yet we need these here in South
Africa,” it reads.
NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA
We’ve heard this routine before. But it is now being performed on
a stage featuring a new scramble in Africa for the “critical minerals”
and “green metals” needed for the energy
transition. And it has a regional cast.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana
said in a brief interview recently that
critical minerals would be high on his
radar at the annual World Economic
Forum in Davos.
The minister said he had
a planned meeting with
his counterparts from the DRC, Zambia and Zimbabwe to discuss a
regional critical minerals strategy.
“We need to cooperate with them in such a manner so that
we, together, influence the direction… in terms of development,”
Godongwana said.
“The use of these minerals must be done in SADC.”
There are merits to this strategy. Africa is the poorest continent
globally a reflection, in part, of the fact that it is also the least
industrialised.Yet the region also boasts fabulous mineral and
hydrocarbon wealth which it has mostly failed to translate into
wider prosperity, a state of affairs dubbed in some circles as the
“resource curse”.
One plausible way to break the spell is to process the extracted
commodities further instead of exporting the raw material and then
using it to build stuff here.
Zimbabwe is blazing a path of sorts and is an example Godongwana
pointed out. Zimbabwe banned the export of raw lithium, a crucial
battery metal for electric vehicles (EVs), in 2022 in a bid to curb artisanal
mining and extract more value. If you want to invest in a Zimbabwean
lithium project, you need to pony up for some processing as well.
SO, HOW’S THAT GOING?
Well, Reuters reported in late 2023 that Zimbabwe earned
$209-million from lithium exports in the first nine months of that
year, nearly triple the previous year’s earnings.
This is because Chinese companies have spent more than
$1-billion during the past two years in Zimbabwe’s lithium space to
develop projects, including some processing.
Zimbabwe is still not quite at the stage where it’s building EVs.
According to Reuters, most of the Chinese companies involved
“have built processing plants… and are shipping lithium concentrates
to China for further processing”.
Still, adding some value presumably creates some jobs while
spurring “industrialisation”.
And the region may be in a position to make “beneficiation” demands
of investors.
MINERALS “SUPER REGION”
Research group Wood Mackenzie recently produced a white paper
exploring the idea of creating a “minerals super region” comprising
Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia, saying it
“would make a huge contribution to a successful energy transition”.
It underlined the point that Africa’s potential on this front
was “unrivalled”.
28 | Service magazine