Mining Weekly News

There were expressions of excitement at the South Africa’s Junior Indaba on Tuesday when attendees at the important mining event learnt of the signing of the service-level agreement (SLA) for South Africa's long-awaited mining cadastral system, a key tool for orderly mineral exploration regulation. “Pen was put to paper yesterday,” opening discussion chairperson and NSDV director Lili Nupen highlighted following the revelation of the SLA by Department of Mineral Resources and Energy deputy director-general and panelist Theliso Maqubela.

When considering the challenges involved in junior mining companies living up to increasingly stringent environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements and reporting standards, mining and environmental law firm Malan Scholes director Hulmes Scholes has noted that ESG is just a new term for reporting what mining companies already do. As such, junior miners need not be intimidated by it, he told delegates attending the Junior Indaba, in Johannesburg, on May 21.

South Africa’s R105-billion green hydrogen, green ammonia project in the Eastern Cape took another major leap forward on Tuesday with the announcement of its underpinning by a cluster of nine solar projects in the very high solar yielding area of De Aar. The giga scale 1 230 MW solar project is the co-development of a consortium made up of Hive Hydrogen, Akuo Energy Afrique, Africoast Investments and Golden Sunshine Trading, which has been working towards this milestone for the past two years, and follows Hive Hydrogen signing an agreement earlier this year with Genesis Eco-Energy to implement 372 MW of wind power in the Western Cape, also in support of the green hydrogen, green ammonia project at Coega.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has invited comment on Eskom’s application to preserve and reserve grid connection capacity for independent power producers (IPPs) participating in public procurement processes implemented in line with Section 34 of the Electricity Regulation Act (ERA). In its application, Eskom indicates that it is seeking permission to discriminate in favour of public procurement IPP projects, at the expense of private IPP projects.

Private investment company Menar, which is advancing steadily on the manganese front, has anthracite, coal, nickel, and gold in its diversified multi-country portfolio. The company's diversification into manganese began in 2021 with the East Manganese project in the Northern Cape, where a second manganese project is now at an advanced stage of assessment, and a manganese acquisition is under consideration.