OVERVIEW The mining industry’s employer body is the Chamber of Mines. The Chamber’s address in Hollard Street, Marshalltown, Johannesburg, reflects the fact that the city of Johannesburg was founded on gold. All of the bodies that oversee the South African mining industry are located in Gauteng. The mining industry itself is looking at new ways of doing business. Guided by the Zambezi Protocol, the Chamber of Mines wants mining to be more positive and constructive, working better with the communities in which it operates. New Chamber CEO Mxolisi Mgojo is simultaneously leading his company, Exxaro Resources, on a programme to make mining sustainable through measures such as water sharing with local communities and finding ways to help communities gain access to energy. A 400km gold reef stretching across most of Gauteng and some of the neighbouring provinces was for many years the backbone of South Africa’s mining industry. Gold production has generally been in decline for some years, with older mines such as AngloGold’s TauTau either closing unprofitable shafts or being put on care and maintenance (Kopanang). Global demand for gold has see-sawed in recent years. Cullinan, east of Pretoria, is the site of one of the greatest finds in diamond-mining history. The eponymous diamond was cut into several smaller diamonds, including the 530-carat Great Star of Africa. Today, Petra Diamonds continues to mine Cullinan as one of its four South African projects. Petra Diamond’s Cullinan mine has an orebody that contains a diamond resource of 194 Mcts which is why Petra is expanding with a goal of annual production of 2.2 Mcts by 2019. A R1.6-billion processing plant is being built at Cullinan, with a throughput capacity of 6 Mtpa. Research Gauteng is home to most of the research and training bodies associated with mining. AECI, the explosives and chemicals com-
ONLINE RESOURCES Chamber of Mines: www.chamberofmines.org.za Council for Geoscience: www.geoscience.org.za Mining Qualifications Authority: www.mqa.org.za Mintek: www.mintek.co.za National Department of Mineral Resources: www.dmr.gov.za Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: www.saimm.co.za South African Minerals Processing Cluster: www.saceec.com/sampec
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pany which has been involved in mining in South Africa almost as long as there has been a mining industry, supports the Virtual Reality Mine Design Centre located at the University of Pretoria. Mintek is an autonomous body based in Randburg which receives about 30% of its budget from the Department of Mineral Resources. The balance comes from joint ventures with privatesector partners, or is earned in research and development income, the sale of services or products and from technology licensing agreements. An example of collaboration is Project AuTEK which has found a way of getting gold catalysts to play a role in improving fuel-cell efficiency. Mintek teamed up with the Department of Science and Technology and AngloGold Ashanti. The University of Witwatersrand School of Mining (shown on the opposite page) has two houses that are partfunded by mining houses and equipment suppliers including Xstrata, Lonmin, De Beers, Anglo Platinum and Sandvik. Pretoria Universit y has a Depar tment of Mining Engineering, the University of South Africa offers three national diplomas in minerelated fields, the University of Johannesburg has minesurveying courses and the Vaal and Tshwane universities of technology have engineering faculties.
GAUTENG BUSINESS 2018/19