LIKE A DUMP TRUCK on a mine, the four-day Mining Indaba in February in South Africa spilled forth a torrent of topics that kept nearly 7,000 delegates talking for four days: gold; power; precious metals; Ebola; risk; an investment battle in a boxing ring; battery metals and a bishop from Birmingham looking for a bounty. Pardon my alliteration, but it was a remarkable week if you looked behind the scenes.
Deals emerging, within weeks from the Mining Indaba may be few and far between, but in the next few months there is likely to be action. Mining Indaba old hands describe the networking gathering as a catalyst that ushers in deals, albeit in the long term.
In recent years, many thought the Mining Indaba was mirroring the cloud over South Africa’s once vibrant mining industry. The industry contends with regulatory uncertainties, rising costs and falling productivity.
Rising commodity prices have lifted the gloom, slightly, this year.
Palladium prices – a platinum group metal – have rocketed in the last year as demand has grown for car catalytic convertors. Andrew van Zyl, a mining analyst with SRK Consulting, said Anglo Platinum had doubled its share price in that time on the back of the palladium boom. Gold and so-called battery metals have also picked up in price since the last Mining Indaba, but more of that later.
The organizers claim a 7% increase in attendance with one African head of state, around 40 ministers, 600 investors and 280 executives from junior mining companies. Junior miners are the scouts of the mining industry who spend their lives grafting and grubbing away on mining projects that few know exist. They range from two men, with an excavator and a dump truck, to small, robust, lean, companies ready to go anywhere to develop a mining deposit. They cash in by selling on the developed asset to major miners who have the ability to pour in the ocean of capital needed to fully exploit it.
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