On-The-Air (31/01/2025)
Martin Creamer talks about coal exports, platinum's role in anti-cancer and Implats.
It’s that time again on a Friday when Update At Noon presents another Update From The Coal-Face with Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.
Kamwendo: South Africa’s award-winning coal terminal in KwaZulu-Natal is ready to export a lot more coal.
Creamer: Yes, we have been down there, as journalists, to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, and what is absolutely clear is that the port and the terminal are able to export a lot more coal. And why we say that is that they had to catch up. So there were a lot of ships queued up, and they had to move very fast to fill those, and the rate at which they did it, was at an equivalent of 91-million tons a year. Now they only exported 52-million tons last year.
So it means that there's a marvellous opportunity to export more; but what has to contribute is rail. So the State-owned rail has to be focused upon. And the good news is that both the public sector and the private sector have now got together intensely.
They are looking at all the maintenance issues, they're looking at all the parts issues, trying to speed up getting these locos to deliver, which will be very beneficial for us. The more we export, the more rands we earn on the export market, the stronger our rand, the more people get employed here, the better the economy. So I hope that we do catch up and make sure that we can export at our Richards Bay Coal Terminal capacity.
Kamwendo: South Africa’s platinum metals are playing a crucial new anti-cancer role.
Creamer: Yes. Can you think of this now? These are super power metals. We host them in the biggest quantities. There's no one in the world that actually has an endowment of platinum group metals like South Africa, and just so often now, we are finding that these metals can play roles across a broad spectrum.
We have been used to them clearing the air of the big cities of the world because they perform a catalytic function in car exhausts. We have seen them get active now in green hydrogen with the electrolysers, and then once that green hydrogen is produced using fuel cells, which are also platinum controlled to get the electricity - the very clean electricity; but we never dreamt that in the medical field, these metals could play a massive role in chemotherapy - and they are doing so.
So the more demand we get for the metals, the better. South Africa needs this demand. At the moment, the platinum group metals price does not match what is happening, it doesn't even match demand. And this is quite ironic, but it's because of the wars that are taking place in the world and disruptions in the world. But hopefully when things normalise, we will really score from platinum group metals, which have superpowers.
Kamwendo: One of South Africa’s biggest platinum refineries has made a major switch to using wind power.
Creamer: Yes, and this wind power is going to come from Discovery. Now, we always associate Discovery with health insurance and banking.
We don't associate Discovery with actual wind energy and sun energy, but Discovery Green is now a trader in that business, and you can see that they have done a deal with Impala Platinum’s big refinery out in Springs to give them five years of wind energy, as well as other deals in the mining and hospitality industries.
Kamwendo: Well, we'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much. Martin. Martin Creamer will be back with another edition of at the Coalface a same time next Friday.
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