Biggest Mining Indaba welcomed
MORE than 6 000 delegates are converging in Cape Town this week for the Investing in African Mining Indaba – the world’s largest meeting of mining industry heavyweights, investment fund managers and government officials, hoping to attract investments.
Western Cape Economic Opportunities MEC Alan Winde welcomed the delegates of the Investing in African Mining Indaba to the Western Cape yesterday, saying the event formed an important part of the city’s tourism calendar.
The Mining Indaba happens as some of the biggest players in the industry, including Anglo-American, are scaling back their investments in South Africa.
Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane said there was no friction between his department and mining companies. Zwane committed his department to meeting deadlines which would resolve crucial questions over SA’s mineral regulations. – Staff Writer
ANGLO American chief executive Mark Cutifani yesterday called on stakeholders in the mining industry to work together to refine factors that would reinvent and redefine the sector in the near future.
Cutifani told delegates at the African Mining Indaba in Cape Town that the stage was set for the mining industry to do things differently in order to find new, safe, responsible and cost-effective ways to mine the ore bodies and meet the needs of a rapidly urbanising global population.
Cutifani said Anglo American had survived by developing a variety of unique approaches to increase productivity by around 40 percent since 2013 at a third less of unit costs. He said the initiatives saw the global diversified group producing more product in 2016 than it did in 2012, despite reducing its number of assets from 68 to 42.
“It is clear to me that innovation holds the key to our future,” Cutifani said.
“And while increased uncertainty and seismic socio-political and economic changes may be our ‘new normal’, we must build a more resilient mining industry. Resilient in terms of our investments and our businesses, resilient in terms of our returns to shareholders and resilient in terms of the contributions we make to society.”
But he acknowledged that the mining industry was “not out of the woods yet”, despite the surprise rebound in iron ore demand and coal prices in the past year. The global mining industry has been facing economic headwinds in the past couple of years due to depressed commodity prices and declining demand, especially in China. “For the global mining industry the past year has brought some reprieve,” Cutifani said.
“While market watchers were ready to sound a death knell on mining’s prospects, we are still here: stronger than we were before, despite the continuing ebb and flow of sentiment and prices.”
Cutifani also derided criticism that the mining industry in South Africa was owned and controlled by an oligarch of white monopoly capitalists, arguing that a growing number of ordinary black people were benefiting from the industry.
“Many people still don’t understand that the owners of most South African publicly listed mining companies are not the “Randlords” or magnates of the previous generations but, rather, ordinary pension and investment fund owners,” Cutifani said.