The future of South Africa’s platinum sector lies not in the deep-vein, shanty-town-lined mines of old but rather in the newer, shallower, more community-aware mines.
GRONINGEN (MINEWEB) – What was clear from the presentations and conversations in Toronto during this year’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference is that the long-term future of South Africa’s platinum sector lies not in the deep-vein, shanty-town-lined mines of old but rather in the newer, shallower mines that afford more opportunities to local communities and for mechanisation.
From a cost point of view, this, at least on paper, was obvious in a slide shown by Mike Jones, CEO of Platinum Group Metals, during his presentation.
As South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu pointed out to Mineweb last week, “If you look at the new mines in SA, they are completely different from your traditional mines, especially the old gold mines in the West Rand of Johannesburg and the platinum mines in Rustenburg.
“If you go to Limpopo and look at the new mines, they are completely different. Most of them are mechanized, they employ young, literate people. They no longer employ people who don’t have matric; they employ people with a grade 12.”
And, this is exactly the space in which Jones is hoping Platinum Group Metals’ new Waterberg discovery is going to play. Because of the type of reef that has been discovered on the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Complex, PTM says the ore can reclaimed through high tonnage room and pillar mining accessed from surface declines, which changes the type of labour required.
“These can be high-paying jobs. You have the productivity in this situation to pay a significantly improved wage,” he told Mineweb.
This is a similar to comments made recently by Ivanplats CEO, Robert Friedland, who reportedly told a mining conference in Johannesburg that Ivanplat’s Flatreef deposit would change the pay scales of platinum miners by an order of magnitude. This claim was moderated slightly, during his presentation at this year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba, but the sentiment remains: more mechanisable deposits mean higher levels of productivity and the capacity for significantly higher wages for workers with greater levels of skill.
According to Ivanplats geologist, Tim Dunnet, who spoke directly after Jones in Toronto, the style of mineralisation at Flatreef indicated platinum orebodies that were on average 24m thick with some areas much thicker. This is significantly higher than the types of veins commonly seen in the deep level mines on the eastern limb, where grading is generally between 40cm and 1.5m.
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