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Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses how a flow-through shares incentive scheme could solve the country’s exploration problems; South Africa positioning itself as a platinum-based hydrogen technology leader; and hydrogen becoming a broad demand, strong growth sector.

South Africa's State-owned IDC to convert Orion loan facility into equity

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

South Africa's State-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has agreed to convert its convertible loan facility to the Sydney- and Johannesburg-listed Orion Minerals into equity.

Orion is reviving the fully permitted Prieska copper/zinc mine (PCZM) in South Africa's Northern Cape, which last operated in 1991, with a mining resource of 31-million tonnes at 1.2% copper and 3.6% zinc.

The equity will be in Orion's subsidiary, PCZM HoldCo, in accordance with the loan facility agreement dated February 2023 and the implementation agreement executed on Tuesday, March 31. Following completion of the equity conversion, the IDC will hold 23.8% of PCZM HoldCo, an effective interest of 16.7% in PCZM and retain a shareholder loan of R272.4-million.

"With the IDC conversion agreed, we'll now focus on completing the remaining conditions precedent to the Glencore financing and offtake agreements," Orion CEO Tony Lennox stated in a media release to Mining Weekly.

PCZM has a prepayment agreement with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Glencore for a $250-million prepayment facility linked to the sale of bulk copper and zinc concentrates from the Prieska project.

The facility will fund the Uppers development and partially fund the Deeps development at Prieska, highlighted as a significant step in Orion's transition to a fully operational company.

First concentrate from PCZM is now expected at the end of the first quarter of 2027.

IDC executive: industry planning and project development Rian Coetzee pointed out that the take-up of an equity position in PCZM HoldCo underscored IDC's support for the development of the project and its alignment with South Africa's industrialisation and beneficiation objectives.

"IDC's participation reflects our confidence in the project's fundamentals, strategic importance, and contribution to regional economic development, including job creation and supply-chain stimulation.

"This equity participation is consistent with IDC's mandate to support strategically important, commercially sustainable projects that advance industrial development and long-term economic value.

"The equity investment forms part of IDC's mandate to support inclusive growth and industrial capability," Coetzee explained.

Also in the Northern Cape is Orion's Okiep copper project, in which the IDC has a 43.75% shareholding.

Orion Minerals reported on March 19 that it had finalised the settlement of the remaining R14.74-million consideration for the acquisition of a controlling interest in the Okiep copper project. The consideration comprised R2.3-million in cash and R12.44-million in shares.

Orion entered into definitive agreements in 2021 to acquire the mineral rights and associated assets held by Southern African Tantalum Mining, Nababeep Copper Company and Bulletrap Copper through its subsidiary companies New Okiep Mining Company and New Okiep Exploration Company.

Minerals Council South Africa acting chief economist Bongani Motsa this week emphasised the richness of the Northern Cape this week ahead of the upcoming Northern Cape Investment and Jobs Conference 2026, which will take place in Kimberley from April 13 to 15.

Northern Cape Premier Dr Zamani Saul told the collaboration session in Sandton that mining is one of the six critical pillars of the province's industrialisation and development strategy, along with infrastructure development and transport corridors to support an expanded mining sector.

Saul described the Northern Cape as one of South Africa's most under-explored and underutilised yet highest potential regions and invited business and investors to reimagine the Northern Cape as a future-facing, globally competitive indus...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

South Africa's drilling provider across five continents, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Master Drilling, is well positioned to benefit from the commodity bull run, the shift in the market, and the global transitioning of opencast mining to underground mining in the short, medium, and long term, says Danie Pretorius, the founder and CEO of the 40-year-old original-equipment manufacturer, which has expanded beyond its initial raise boring specialisation to include comprehensive drilling services.

"If you look at our pipeline order book, it's the highest it's been... so, I guess today it's a matter of execution," an upbeat Pretorius commented in an interview with Mining Weekly. (See attached Creamer Media video.)

Master Drilling's 2026 pipeline order book is at the $1-billion level amid the company's record 2025 revenue of $292-million and 71.3% higher earnings per share.

"If you take a step back and look at miners, they're desperate for ways to access orebodies and service providers like ourselves need to try to develop those technologies, those systems, to help these miners to get down there ... and there's a lot of opportunity," Pretorius pointed out on March 31, the day it reported a 57.2% higher operating profit of $46.5-million.

Interestingly, Master Drilling is currently advancing what will be the largest and longest raise-bore hole ever drilled in the world. This is being done at Northam Platinum's Zonderiende platinum group metals (PGMs) mine in South Africa's Limpopo province.

Backing up the dominant 83% raise boring business pillar of the multi-pillared Master Drilling are digitalisation and smart mining at 11%, slim drilling at 4%, and mechanical rock excavation and cutting at 2%.

As mines deepen and become more complex, the autonomous technology that Master Drilling is taking steps to provide is expected to become a future differentiator.

Of the next-generation machines, the blind hole machine has been mobilised to Chile and during the last year, AI has been used for predictive maintenance, fault finding and drill parameter optimisation while drilling is taking place.

When Mining Weekly last spoke to Master Drilling, three major developments that have the potential to move the needle for mining, were highlighted. One of them was what you described as your "ready-made new shaft boring system, or SBS" that points to drilling a shaft to depth in half the time. Has that succeeded in moving the needle yet?

We've completed phase one. We've actually commissioned the machine outside of our works on a farm, and we've hit most of those key performance indicators (KPIs). We're now moving into phase two. Most of the plan is being ordered, and we hope in the second half of the year to receive the hardware and to commission the second phase of this equipment late this year, early 2027. So, we hope to have this machine deployed on a project somewhere in 2027 if we hit all the KPIs in the next phase. But certainly exciting stuff, and a nice tool to have in the box for the miners to get quicker access to their orebodies.

The second potential needle-mover mentioned was a mobile tunnel borer, or MTB, machine that was described as paving the way for the third needle-mover – a narrow-reef rock cutter that was expected to maximise extraction and minimise waste from an orebody that was currently not economically viable using conventional mining methods. How's the MTB going?

We commissioned the machine the end of last year at the Bokoni site. We're doing the project in collaboration with African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), and it's early days. We're ramping up production as we speak, but, again, once we can get this fully operational, we expect a lot of interest from the industry to use the MTB-type tun...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

South Africa's Master Drilling, the Fochville-based company which on Tuesday reported $292-million revenue record plus a nigh billion-dollar 2026 order book, is introducing autonomous drilling technology applicable raise boring which brings in more than 80% of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company's business.

Operating profit increased by 57.2% to $46.5-million, earnings per share in rands were 71.3% up at 361,1 cents a share. Net cash generated from operations was $17.9-million and of the $20.6-million capital expenditure, 66% was on expansion and 34% on sustaining the existing fleet, Master Drilling CFO Andre van Deventer reported.

An initiative under way is "to commission a total autonomous drilling system, and we hope to get that over the line before the end of the year", Master Drilling CEO Danie Pretorius stated during his results presentation covered by Mining Weekly.

"We've developed autonomous drilling technology, which are applicable to the company's raise-boring rigs so that these rigs can operate without human intervention," Master Drilling COO Roelof Swanepoel explained.

"If you look at our pipeline and an order book, obviously it's a very nice position for the business for a company of our size to go into a New Year with an order book of just on a billion dollars. We couldn't have asked for better.

"Probably as important is the makeup of the order book and pipeline," said Pretorius in pointing out the overwhelming multi-country copper and the gold exposure that the pipeline highlights, with platinum group metals filling position three on the slide showing the company's diverse 15-commodity revenue generators.

On Master Drilling's 2025 revenue being 7.8% higher than that of 2024, Pretorius added: "We'd like to have seen a bit more given this commodity bull run", but the exceptionally strong pipeline is set to lift business considerably higher.

Raise bore hot spots around the world are being targeted amid $2.million having been invested in the development of technical and management skills across the group in 2025 – up on $1.8-million invested in 2024.

The 2025 workforce of 3 294 employees is also up on the 3 112 of 2024.

Backing up the dominant 83% raise boring business pillar are digitalisation and smart mining at 11%, slim drilling at 4% and mechanical rock excavation and cutting at 2%. The moderate 2% from mechanical rock excavation obscures what strategically is regarded as a very important pillar by Master Drilling, and this contribution is expected to be considerably higher in the years ahead.

As mines deepen and become more complex, autonomous technology is expected to become the real differentiator in the future.

Of the next generation machines, the Bluebot blind hole machine has been mobilised to Chile and during the last year, artificial intelligence (AI) has been used for predictive maintenance, fault finding and drill parameter optimisation while drilling is taking place.

Major upside potential is seen for AI as it is used in many more applications beyond raise boring alone.

Meanwhile, the contribution Master Drilling's digitalisation and smart mining pillar is coming mainly from its mine safety technology subsidiary A&R.

"If you look at South African technology around tracking people and tracking equipment underground, South Africa's technology and legislation is leading in many ways.

"A number of countries are looking to South Africa, to the technology being deployed here, and also the legislation being used by miners and our strategy is to take this technology that we have in South Africa, which is tested and proven, to the global market," Swanepoel reported amid displaying AI-powered cameras, developed by Embedded IQ, a company in which Master Drilling is ...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

South Africa's Northern Cape province has the potential to unlock significant revenue from a revitalised and expanded mining sector, Minerals Council South Africa acting chief economist Bongani Motsa told a stakeholders' collaboration session in Sandton ahead of the upcoming Northern Cape Investment and Jobs Conference 2026, which will be hosted in Kimberley from April 13 to 15.

The Northern Cape, Motsa pointed out, has significant reserves of manganese and rare earth minerals which could catalyse economic growth in the province and South Africa as a whole.

In addition to Northern Cape having the potential to be South Africa's next mining hub, Motsa expressed the view that it could also be the next beneficiation centre for manganese and iron-ore.

"But there must be a deliberate strategy to extract value, and planning must start now," he urged, while calling for more investment in value-addition initiatives directed at South Africa's own needs.

Northern Cape Premier Dr Zamani Saul told the collaboration session that mining is one of the six critical pillars of the province's industrialisation and development strategy, along with infrastructure development and transport corridors to support an expanded mining sector.

Saul described the Northern Cape as one of South Africa's most under-explored and underutilised yet highest potential regions and invited business and investors to reimagine the Northern Cape as a future-facing, globally competitive industrial hub.

"Across the world, industrial advantage is shifting towards regions that offer four things: abundant green energy; proximity to natural resources; a trained skills base; and access to markets through reliable infrastructure," said Saul.

"This shift is drawing value chains back towards resource locations and the Northern Cape is firmly on this trajectory. The Northern Cape offers a scale of opportunities that few in the world can match. It is a large and under-used industrial landscape with room for energy, mining, agriculture, manufacturing, logistics and tourism."

Amid global demand for critical minerals such as manganese, copper, and zinc rising sharply, Saul drew attention to the Northern Cape holding globally significant deposits of these minerals, while being well positioned to become a dependable, long-term supplier to global manufacturing value chains.

"We're now moving up the value chain to a new greener smelting capacity for zinc, manganese, iron-ore, copper and lime, and key investors are already deeply invested in the Northern Cape," the Premier remarked.

Government, business, investors and stakeholders will meet in Kimberley next month to discuss opportunities and partnerships to stimulate the Northern Cape's industrial development plans.

The Northern Cape Investment and Jobs Conference will be held at the Mittah Seperepere International Convention Centre.