Every Friday, SAfm’s radio anchor Jon Gericke speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Gericke: South Africa must seize the opportunity to rebuild its mining industry for the benefit of all South Africans.

Creamer: You know, 100 years ago plus, we built our economy on mining. We have now suddenly got an opportunity to do that again, but this time inclusively, this time properly, but there are constraints. We are listening to those over and over again and we hope that those constraints will be removed. The one is legislation in the form of the new Mineral Resources Amendment Bill that, I hope, will come through in the first quarter of this year, but that has got to be turned into something more investor friendly. If that happens, I think we can look forward to a good year. This year should be good. I mean, the gold price is exceptional. The platinum group metals prices are good. Some of the other prices may be a little bit flat, but they are still there. Collectively, people at this week’s Investing in African Mining Conference in Cape Town were saying, it looks like it is going to be a very good year.

Gericke:  Will there be inclusivity?

Creamer: This is what the whole of South Africa is so conscious about – inclusivity and equity. All they talk about is bringing every single South African into mining 2.0. There is no doubt that mining economy, and, of course, the agricultural economy to some ways as well, can bring people in, because there are so many upstream, downstream opportunities, so many ways of moving to build that economy with greater effort. The consciousness around ensuring that every single South African benefits is huge

Gericke: South Africa’s new gold mine project on Johannesburg’s doorstep just keeps on getting bigger and bigger at time of good gold price.

Creamer: That new gold mining project is unbelievable in the manner in which it is displaying more gold. The initial number of millions of ounces sounded good but now they are talking about seven-million ounces. That is 44% up on the first gold reserve announcement and they have hardly been there. You get there and they are looking over the fence and saying, we are putting in more permit applications, because we know that the grades over the fence are even better, than what we are doing now, which is four grammes a tonne. When you go down and you look at the place, this is virgin rock. How did that happen? It is called Qala Shallows, Qala being Zulu for this is just the beginning and shallows to indicate that this is extraordinarily shallow in terms of what we’re used to – depth of 800 metres and it’s virgin rock, that is untouched rock, believe it or not. Before the end of this quarter, they’re going to be pouring their first gold, now that is really quick. It is because we have got infrastructure. This mine is only 15 minutes by car from the CBD of Johannesburg, so they don't actually have to put in gold concentrating plant, because processing plant is available down the road. So, wonderful things are happening. The Australians, who need to be credited for pursuing this right under our noses, are already making their expansion plans clear. They are also looking to hopefully list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchanges as well, which will be in addition to their Australian listing. So, it is plus, plus, plus, win, win, win gold, closer than close to the Golden City of Johannesburg.

Gericke: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer, publishing, editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly, will be back at the Coal-Face at the same time next Friday.