South Africa mining industry prepared for R220 billion investment in 2018

The South African mining industry is poised to receive more than R220 billion in investments this year, says the Mineral Resources Ministrer, Mosebenzi Zwane.

Speaking at the 2018 Investing in Mining Indaba, currently taking place in Capetown, Zwane believes that the “spring in mining is indeed blossoming into a summer.”

This belief comes at a time of improved confidence in the sector, as 2016 saw a period of stabilisation and 2017 saw this continue to strengthen with rising commodity prices and upward trends in exploration, financing and mergers and acquisitions.

Upswing in South Africa

During his address, Zwane pointed to a year on year continued growth trend.

The GDP rebounded in the second and third quarters of 2017, growing 2.8% and 2%. This was helped, in no small part, by the mining sector, which grew at 8.2% and 6.6% in the same quarters, representing an overall year-on-year growth of 5.2%.

“The greatest contributor to this growth were the metals including copper, iron ore and PGMs,” said Zwane.

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“We have over R220 billion-rand worth of investments in the project pipeline, which includes PGMS, industrial metals, energy and non-ferrous metals, demonstrating that South Africa remains a critical investment destination.”

PGMs continue to be the key driver

There is a major Government driven goal across the whole African continent to develop “meaningful integration of the mining sector to the broader economy.”

This will be achieved specifically through manufacturing and service, which highlights the importance of PGMs.

“As host of over 80% of global reserves, South Africa has taken the lead in research and development for downstream beneficiation of PGMs principally through the Hydrogen South Africa (HySA) flagship project which is focused on developing downstream beneficiation of platinum through its use in hydrogen powered fuel cells,” said Zwane.

“We stand ready to partner with investors in this and other priority value chains including titanium, iron ore and jewellery."