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There is no argument that the Mogalakwena platinum group metals (PGM) mine in South Africa's Limpopo province is "definitely" the PGM mining industry's most exciting endowment, Valterra Platinum executive head mining operations Willie Theron stated emphatically during the company's value-chain media briefing.

Valterra has communicated to the market that Mogalakwena, on a six-element (6E) basis, is targeting production of between 900 000 oz and a million ounces a year. "But I just want to highlight our inclusive resource number," said Theron, as he reported that, on a 4E basis, there are 285-million ounces at Mogalakwena, which against the targeted production offers multi-century mine-life potential of 300 years plus – "that's how massive that resource is," Theron pointed out.

Then, after going beyond Mogalakwena alone and extending out to the likes of Valterra's Amandelbult, Mototolo, Twickenham, and Unki, he pointed out that Valterra's huge resource is enough to keep this Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company busy "for millennia, never mind decades".

Mogalakwena mines the Platreef, which Theron explained is not just about mining this reef that others are now also pursuing. "It's about concentrating the Platreef and going through smelting and refining of the Platreef."

And there is going to be a lot more of that because the Mogalakwena openpit mine is on the way to being followed by Valterra's Sandsloot Underground Project.

The Sandsloot Underground Project is an underground PGM development situated beneath the former Sandsloot openpit at the Mogalakwena mine.

"If you look at Mogalakwena specifically, it has a one-to-one platinum-palladium ratio.

"It doesn't have any chrome, and it has very little rhodium. But it does come with a nice tick on copper and a nice tick on nickel, and it does give us a fair amount of gold.

"Almost 70% of our gold that we produce as a company comes just from Mogalakwena. If you recall, it's close to 100 000 oz. So, that is very important to note about the Platreef orebody.

"What's also interesting about the Platreef orebody is that it dips at a 45o angle and then flattens out.

"So, anyone that looks at the Platreef orebody needs to consider how they're going to treat base metals and then also how they're going to deal with Platreef's characteristics, because what's also quite interesting about the Platreef orebody is that it has a lot of clay material associated with it, and you don't use the same PGM-recovery methodologies."

AMANDELBULT GENERATING HIGHER REVENUE

While Mogalakwena is where major growth is being planned, it is the conventionally mined Amandelbult that is Valterra's bigger revenue generator, located as it is on the northern part of the western limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex and also, like Mogalakwena, in Limpopo.

There is a difference between the northern part of the western limb in that it has 1.5-m-thick upper group two (UG2) reef and when you look at its UG2 specifically, the platinum-palladium ratio is two parts platinum to one part palladium, which turns Amandelbult into the highest valued basket in the Valterra portfolio.

At this moment, Valterra gets more revenue from Amandelbult than Mogalakwena owing to Mogalakwena having a one-to-one platinum-palladium ratio.

"So, on a revenue basis, Mogalakwena is actually at a lower end owing to Amandelbult being two parts platinum, one part palladium, along with very good rhodium and very good chrome, and also interestingly enough, nice ruthenium and nice iridium, so a very important orebody."

SOUTH AFRICA CAN PROVIDE WORLD'S PGM NEEDS

Clearly, given Valterra and its PGM peers, South Africa can give the world the PGM metals that it needs. There's enough metal in the ground for decades and decad...

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Industry body Mining Association of Canada (MAC) has welcomed an announcement by the federal government on a "Productivity Mega Deduction" as a permanent measure allowing businesses to fully write off the cost of most new capital assets in the year they are put to use.

For Canada's mining industry, the Productivity Mega Deduction would allow companies to immediately deduct the full cost of a broad range of eligible depreciable assets acquired on or after September 15, once those assets are available for use.

This could include a broad range of machinery, equipment and infrastructure used to build, operate, modernise or expand mines, as well as equipment used in mineral processing, smelting and refining.

Qualifying Canadian development expenses incurred from that date would also be immediately deductible, including costs associated with developing new mines and qualifying development work at existing operations.

Mining projects require enormous upfront investment, often years before they begin generating revenue, MAC states, adding that receiving these deductions sooner will improve project cash flow and net present value, lower the effective cost of investments in equipment and mine development, and could help some marginal projects or brownfield expansions meet companies' investment thresholds.

"Making immediate expensing permanent will also provide greater certainty for the long-term investment decisions needed to bring new mines into production, extend the life of existing operations and strengthen Canada's mineral-processing capacity," the organisation explains.

Importantly, the measure is broadly commodity-agnostic. This broad eligibility is especially valuable in mining, where projects frequently produce multiple minerals and investment decisions must account for changing markets over the long life of a mine.

"Today's announcement by Prime Minister Mark Carney is transformative. With these announced new measures, Canada will become one of, if not the most, competitive mining tax jurisdiction in the world," says MAC CEO and president Pierre Gratton.

"It will usher in a new age of new mining investment, spurring job creation, supporting local and Indigenous businesses and increasing Canada's supply of the minerals and metals the world needs and wants from a trusted country like ours. We expect these measures to have demonstrable effect in the near to medium term.

"For mining, timing matters: Canada is competing with other jurisdictions for the investment needed to build out mineral supply chains, from base metals like nickel and copper to the critical minerals that allies are counting on.

"By covering all of mining rather than a narrower list of commodities, the Productivity Mega Deduction stands to mark a turning point for investment across the sector and builds on Canada's growing strength in other commodities like gold and precious metals," Gratton concludes.

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Hive Hydrogen South Africa on Tuesday, September 15, awarded the front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for South Africa's pioneering $5.8-billion green hydrogen ammonia project to Spanish company Técnicas Reunidas.

"The Técnicas Reunidas proposal was outstanding in all respects. Our aim remains to produce the lowest cost green ammonia globally," said Hive Hydrogen chairperson Thulani Gcabashe, a former Eskom CEO and Standard Bank chair.

In its final stage of development, the Hive Hydrogen project is viewed as South Africa's lighthouse green hydrogen project as well as being the flagship green hydrogen project for the EU's Global Gateway programme in South Africa.

Under development is a renewable hydrogen and green ammonia production facility capable of producing a million tonnes a year of green ammonia for supply to international and domestic markets.

The projects own grid-connected large-scale wind and solar PV renewable energy plants totalling 2 930 MW, will power the green hydrogen and green ammonia production facility in Gqeberha.

Multi-faceted, the initiative is seen as being on the way to creating more than 20 000 employment opportunities.

The $9-billion FEED contract is due to commence in Nelson Mandela Bay next month.

Técnicas Reunidas track and services commercial director Gonzalo Pardo said his company was looking forward to delivering a successful FEED and contributing to Coega's role as a benchmark for Africa's sustainable industrial growth."

The contract has been awarded amid the Coega green ammonia project being viewed as having the potential to establish the Eastern Cape as a global export hub for green hydrogen and green ammonia, while supporting industrial development, skills creation, local supply chains, employment and South Africa's transition towards a lower-carbon economy.

The strategic Coega location provides access to the deep-water Port of Ngqura and South Africa's exceptional renewable-energy resources provide a platform for the production and export of competitively priced green ammonia to emerging international markets.

The renewable-energy generation and associated upstream electrical infrastructure required to supply the project form a separate workstream and are not included in this FEED award, which is related specifically to the project's molecule production portion of the green hydrogen and green ammonia production facility, as well as the associated process infrastructure.

A separate request for proposal will be sent to shortlisted special engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) entities.

Técnicas Reunidas was reportedly selected following "a comprehensive competitive procurement, technical and commercial evaluation process" and is said to bring extensive international experience in the delivery of large-scale energy, hydrogen, and ammonia process facilities.

A key feature of Hive Hydrogen South Africa's project execution strategy is for the successful ammonia production plant FEED contractor to roll over from FEED into the full EPC phase for the green ammonia production portion, subject to the successful completion of FEED, achievement of the required technical and commercial outcomes, project approvals, financing and final investment decision (FID).

The EPC scope associated with the ammonia production plant is estimated at $1.8-billion, Hive stated in its media release to Mining Weekly.

This FEED-to-EPC strategy is intended to maintain continuity between engineering and project execution, retain the knowledge developed during FEED reducing interface transition risk, improve schedule certainty and provide a clear pathway towards construction and commissioning.

This FEED programme will further develop the engineering definition to establish the...

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.

TSX-listed Neo Performance Materials has started commercial production at its European permanent magnet manufacturing facility, in Estonia, with first volumes of rare earth sintered magnets having been shipped to an electric vehicle traction motor customer.

These milestones mark Neo's transition from development and sampling through full automotive qualification and into commercial production for its initial magnet programmes.

Neo has been awarded multiple magnet programmes from three Tier 1 motor manufacturers, including traction motor applications, which is the most technically demanding category of permanent magnets.

The company expects two to three more magnet programmes to enter commercial production before the end of the year.

Automotive magnet programmes are typically awarded for the life of the vehicle platform they supply, which gives Neo multi-year volume visibility once a programme is awarded.

Phase 1A of the Estonian permanent magnet facility has a nameplate capacity of 2 000 t/y while Phase 1B is planned to expand nameplate capacity to about 5 000 t/y. The expansion is currently being designed, with detailed engineering, advanced equipment procurement, supply chain planning and facility layout currently underway.

Neo's longer-term magnet roadmap targets yearly production of 20 000 t through continued global expansion, which the company estimates could represent between 10% and 15% of the world's projected rare earth permanent magnet market outside of China.

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.

The third phase of the August 20-launched Government-Business Partnership for Growth and Jobs names freight logistics as a foundational enabler of growing the economy by 3%-plus and generating a million new jobs by 2030.

"This is a welcome signal and confirms our consistently communicated and strong belief that logistics reforms – and rail reform in particular – are central to South Africa's growth targets and are not a technical issue alone but rather a fundamental economic driver," South Africa's Manganese Producers Consortium has pointed out in a media release to Mining Weekly.

The partnership's own scorecard records the entry into the logistics network of 11 private train-operating companies, Durban being recognised as one of the world's most-improved ports (albeit from a low base), and R14.7-billion in Budget Facility for Infrastructure funding being approved for rail related maintenance backlogs.

While the Manganese Producers Consortium supports all tangible results and proof that reform commitments can move from policy to delivery it expressed concern that bulk commodity export corridors are not getting the priority that they "urgently" demand despite lending themselves to "globally proven" private sector participation projects with "significant upside to the South African economy".

What is appreciated by the Manganese Producers Consortium is that the Government-Business Partnership scorecard sets these hard new deadlines involving:

a manganese private sector participation transaction being issued by year-end;the National Rail Bill coming before Parliament by March 2027, andalso by March next year, the Transport Economic Regulator being fully operational.

These targets echo the direction that the Manganese Producers Consortium itself has been supporting for years – but what has been missing are speed, sequencing and executable timelines.

What is different now is that Phase 3 puts government's own credibility on the line to meet these targets.

"Phase 3 matters even more for institutional design as it is critical to ensure that there is a capable delivery 'machine' that encompasses and empowers independent institutions, introduces appropriate regulation and procurement processes with clear roles and responsibilities," the Manganese Producers Consortium emphasised.

Phase 3's architecture assigns focal area leads and CEO sponsors to each priority, and commits to quarterly, public reporting on progress and slippage, which is precisely the kind of visible accountability called for and which remains essential to make this architecture work in practice:

named leadership;transparent milestones;consequences when delivery falls short; anda capacitated, independent unit to drive private sector participation and rail transactions which are bankable and without institutional veto or conflict.

The Phase 3 scorecard lays down that a manganese transaction must be brought to market by December 2026 and the manganese ore industry has a direct stake in the timelines announced.

"This is a specific test, with a set deadline, of whether this Phase 3 can convert intent into action. The development of the long-awaited new manganese terminal at the Port of Ngqura and significant private sector participation on the Ore Export Corridor connecting Sishen in the Northern Cape with the Port of Saldanha cannot be delayed any further.

"Manganese producers stand ready, with capital, committed volumes and long-term rail allocation arrangements, to anchor bankable projects. The 12x12 corridor strategy – 12-million tonnes through Saldanha and 12-million tonnes through Gqeberha – offers a demand-led, investable pathway that fits squarely within the partnership's mining and logistics ambitions.

"The risk is familiar. South A...