A South African mining centre of excellence is one of nine key projects that have been identified globally for consideration as part of a Centres of Excellence Network, which forms part of three key initiatives being pursued by the Future Minerals Forum (FMF).

The fourth edition of the FMF was held last week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The three initiatives that this year’s forum aimed to progress are: developing an International Critical Minerals Framework; pursuing responsible supply; and building capacity across supply countries, especially in terms of talent development, technology and sustainability.

For the latter, this entails developing a Centres of Excellence Network.

The initiatives were established at the 2024 FMF and working groups provided feedback on progress made thus far at a Ministerial Roundtable – a closed session at the start of the FMF.

Ministers attending the roundtable adopted proposals based on this feedback and gave further instructions for teams to do detailed work in developing implementation plans.

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) led South Africa’s delegation at the FMF and participated in the Ministerial Roundtable.

Providing insight into this was DMRE deputy director-general Ntokozo Ngcwabe, who explained to Mining Weekly that the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is leading the country’s centre of excellence workstream, with this centre set to be located at its Pretoria campus.

She informed that the Ministerial roundtable decided that the CSIR would continue in this role.

Moreover, it was outlined that the country has entrenched mining experience of about 283 years, split between the CSIR, Mintek and the Council for Geoscience, in research and development for minerals processing and geology.

Therefore, the workstream would also advocate for South Africa to be considered as a host for one of the Centres of Excellence in the network being developed, and is now charged with putting forward a proposal in this regard.

Also speaking to Mining Weekly on the sidelines of the event was Minerals Council South Africa CEO Mzila Mthenjane, who highlighted this as “an exciting prospect for South Africa”.

“What is most exciting for me from a Minerals Council perspective is that we have a partnership with the CSIR on research, development and innovation through the Mandela Mining Precent. We see ourselves playing the key role in the Centre of Excellence,” Mthenjane acclaimed.  

He said this initiative was recognition that the intellectual resources required to extract minerals responsibly required more than what any one country could provide, with technology, and training and development, to be spread across the world.

He added that it would be about driving research, development and innovation to ensure that the extraction of critical minerals happened safely for employees, was cognisant of the wellbeing of communities and countries, was environmentally sound, and leveraged technology.  

Mthenjane said a key topic at the FMF this year was the need for considerable human capital and talent development, with people needing to both play a role in extracting minerals and also benefitting from them.

Mthenjane also said that discussions at the FMF had indicated the importance and potential for collaboration – between the public and private sectors and across regional and country boundaries.

He highlighted that this would calibrated on an unprecedented scale, to produce future minerals in a responsible way that delivered benefits for countries that supplied them.

The importance of value addition for Africa was also underlined during the FMF, as well as proper governance across the various leadership structures.

*Tasneem Bulbulia was a guest of the FMF at this year’s event.