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: A South African is running one of the world’s biggest gold companies remarkably well.

Creamer: Yes, he is Mark Bristow and I always refer to him as Doctor Mark Bristow, because he is a doctor of geology and he used to teach a lot of geologists here before he got into mining. Then he was appointed to Barrick, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange. He has done remarkably well in the gold industry and he is moving into copper now, because of his approach. This is why I want to put across the need for people who are leading these big mining companies to look at the geology, because what he has done is instead of buying other people's assets, he has searched for the metals. 

He searched for the gold. He searched for the copper now as well. But the big story is that over the last four years, he has got more than 100-million ounces of gold equivalent at the cost of $10 an ounce. Now, this is unbelievable it shows you how important it is to actually look for the minerals yourself and not to buy from others, because the average that people are buying these ounces at, is something like 44 times more. So, the story is that you have got to discover and develop and that has always been his approach. He is now doing it for one of the biggest coal mining companies. We can say a South African is absolutely leading the way in how this should be done and hopefully more people will follow.

Kamwendo: A new focus is being placed on the way green hydrogen will be transported from South Africa to Europe and Asia.

Creamer: You know, Europe has already told us through the visit here by the head of the European Commission. They have said they want our green hydrogen and they will be coming back now when we have the G20 summit here. People are starting to look around and say, well, you know, we must start preparing for this and there should be more private sector involvement, because green hydrogen is the answer. At this stage is still going to be developed to a state and particularly wanting to be involved in the transport is a very well-known logistics company, DHL. 

They have come through from bond now, the person there, who is actually a South African, getting involved and trying to work out how we can start planning to get the green hydrogen to the markets in the best possible way. We are going to have to use it as ammonia, because that is the way it has to be transported. The ports here, Coega is preparing for this. We also know Boegoebaai, they are looking at that on the other side of our country. The signal is, let's get moving on this so that we can be prepared when the big decisions are taken.

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