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Amid green hydrogen being declared integral to a new industrial framework at the Africa Green Hydrogen Summit in South Africa, the global Hydrogen Council is urging the world to lift its hydrogen production game at pace.

While the summit was being told that South Africa's Just Energy Transition Investment Plan programme management office at the Industrial Development Corporation had identified 24 hydrogen projects, the Hydrogen Council co-chairperson and Air Liquide CEO François Jackow was advising the world to "bring hydrogen to scale", while simultaneously pointing out that the energy issues triggered by the conflict in the Middle East had reminded all of us that energy security is a "vital priority".

While the climate topic, underscored by the latest northern hemisphere heat wave, was still a significant hydrogen promoter, it was appropriate that the decarbonisation threat now be joined by "the state of the world, sovereignty, energy security, supply resilience, industrial competitiveness, energy strategy, and electrification", which had become the additional strategic imperatives.

Clearly, hydrogen had a key role to play, Jackow explained during a Global Hydrogen Compass 2026 webinar covered by Mining Weekly.

But clearly, hydrogen is complementary to electrification because you cannot electrify everything in terms of industry or mobility, and that's where hydrogen has a key role to play.

The evolution of the energy mix over the course of 200 years points to hydrogen advancing faster than any other new energy ever has, Baker Hughes CEO Lorenzo Simonelli noted, while emphasising the importance of continued investment in the rewriting of the energy equation as a collective ecosystem to develop the necessary price point.

"So, keep focused on the long-term prize that's definitely there," Simonelli urged.

"From CF Industries' perspective, the most significant change has really been the maturation of a low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia market in North America," said CF Industries CEO Chris Bohn, while pointing out that this advance had been driven by stronger focus on resilience, competitiveness and transitioning into project delivery mode: "No longer talking about it, but moving forward with it."

North America reportedly holds about 80% of the global committed low-carbon hydrogen capacity, with the projects advancing there said to be the largest on average globally.

Bohn expressed the belief that this growth was built on the US Gulf Coast being low cost, low risk and offering long-term offtake partnerships, positioning it to be producing about three and a half million metric tons of low-carbon ammonia at the end of the decade.

Jackow described as "exciting" the collaborative building of the world's hydrogen ecosystem.

"We're seeing a true spirit of alignment and that's extremely powerful. I don't think there are very many new frontiers where you have such a good alignment of complementary partners getting together," Jackow reported.

Simonelli spoke of Baker Hughes working across the entire hydrogen value chain from production, compression, transport, storage, and end use within every major region of the world, which had afforded the company a realistic view of the pace of hydrogen's progress and its elevation from being a decarbonisation discussion to being a much broader energy security solution.

With hydrogen already embedded as a permanent energy reference point, significant action is being seen in Asia, where it is the fastest mover.

"When you look at it from a resource perspective, Asia doesn't have some of the resources that others do, so they're looking at hydrogen being an opportunity, and we're seeing considerable progress in China, but also elsewhere in the Middle East, as we look at hyd...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses the developments surrounding South Africa’s $5.8-billion green hydrogen ammonia project; the Mogalakwena mine which has 300-year-plus resource life; and the Manganese Producers Consortium stressing that Phase 3’s test rail reform cann

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.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International Canada has warned that the Canadian government must not embrace a programme of "race-to-the-bottom" corporate tax cuts that threaten human rights and the environment.

The organisation made the statement in response to the Canadian government's proposed "mega deduction" for corporations, announced at Prime Minister Mark Carney's Canada Investment Summit earlier this week.

If adopted, the changes would massively increase tax deductions businesses could claim for new investments in "capital assets", such as buildings, vehicles, machinery, computer equipment and energy infrastructure.

The proposal includes add-on tax incentives for investments related to the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Amnesty International Canada explains that LNG, derived from fracked methane gas, is a highly contested fossil fuel in Canada owing to its environmental and health impacts, greenwashing, violations of Indigenous Peoples' rights, and mounting financial costs to taxpayers.

According to a Department of Finance Canada press release, the "mega deduction" programme is expected to cost the government $36-billion in tax revenue over five years. Amnesty International says these cuts would extract a steep price from Canadians.

"At a time when Canadians are struggling with sky-high housing costs, surging grocery bills and the fallout from one of the worst wildfire seasons on record, subsidising fossil-fuel and AI companies to the tune of billions of dollars would be an unmitigated disaster," says Amnesty International Canada secretary general Ketty Nivyabandi.

"Providing massive, 'race-to-the-bottom' tax breaks to global investors keeps power and wealth flowing to the few while emptying the public purse. We urge the government to correct course and invest in change that puts people – especially those whose human rights are most at risk – and the environment first," Nivyabandi states.

For years, Amnesty International Canada has repeatedly urged Ottawa to stop subsidising fossil-fuel companies, whose activities accelerate climate change and expose local communities to toxic pollution and other harms. Meanwhile, the federal government under Carney has responded to US President Donald Trump's economic attacks on Canada by encouraging the construction of new fossil-fuel infrastructure.

Amnesty International Canada is of the view that committing billions in public finance to fossil-fuel projects will lock the country into long-term dependency on a source of energy many countries are intentionally eschewing. Rather than pad the profit margins of oil-and-gas companies, Canada must invest aggressively in renewable-energy sources and tax the excess profits of companies capitalising on the surging cost of oil, the organisation says.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International Canada joined a growing list of more than 70 civil society organisations urging the government to tax the excess profits of oil companies raking in extra billions because of wars in the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine.

Revenue derived from taxing the excess profits of Canadian oil giants – who are set to net an estimated $90-billion this year – should be used to help residents offset rising living costs and to supercharge Canada's transition to a green economy, Nivyabandi motivates.

"Canada's leaders have already captured the world's attention through their resolve in the face of Trump's economic attacks and threats against our sovereignty, but we must go further. We can capture the world's imagination by showing that a rapid transition to a greener, fairer economy based in human rights for all is not only possible, but well within our reach," Nivyabandi concludes.

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Base metals company Orion Minerals, which on Thursday September 17 described itself as being on the way to becoming South Africa's next significant copper producer, has taken firm steps to sharpen its own corporate governance as it transitions from copper project development to fully fledged mining and processing.

Two complementary base metal production hubs are being developed by Orion in South Africa's well-endowed and well-established Northern Cape mining jurisdiction.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company, headed by CEO Tony Lennox, is reviving the Prieska Copper Zinc Mine, near Copperton, which from 1971 to 1991 produced 430 000 t of copper and a million tons of zinc from volcanogenic massive sulphide metal deposits when previously operated by Anglovaal.

Revived production from Prieska is now expected in the third quarter of next year amid

Orion's progressing Okiep Copper Project also having a premier historical copper record in a district that produced more than two-million tons of copper over 150 years.

Fresh exploration drilling is also under way in a South Africa well served by mining and engineering know-how.

Emerging, too, on Thursday was an impressive self-scrutiny by Orion of its corporate governance, a fact-packed annual report plus promising participation in BHP Xplor accelerator programme in New York. BHP Xplor is a nine-month accelerator programme that provides mineral exploration and technology companies with up to $500 000 in equity-free funding and mentorship.

"During the year, we continued to define how Orion will operate as we progress towards becoming South Africa's next significant copper producer," Orion stated in its media release to Mining Weekly, which emphasised the company's ambition to create an organisation centred on "experienced people, accountability, practical systems and adaptability".

Interestingly, February's binding agreement for a $250-million copper and zinc concentrates prepayment from a Glencore subsidiary is now South African Reserve Bank approved, with $40-million earmarked to fund the construction and start-up Prieska's Uppers, and $210-million for the funding of the same at Prieska's Deeps.

Also beneficial has been the partial conversion into equity of the loan facility of South Africa's State-owned Industrial Development Corporation as well as value engineering improving the sequencing of the development of the Uppers, where first phase production implementation will take place.

Meanwhile, at Okiep, drilling results have confirmed ongoing high-grade Flat Mine East copper mineralisation, with intercepts of 7.88 m at 9.24% copper and 3.33 m at 17.12% copper reported

Following completion of Prieska and Okiep definitive feasibility studies in March last year, Orion stated that its focus throughout the reporting period had been on project execution planning and funding.

Prieska's first phase, the company said, would target early production from the shallower, higher-grade Uppers with dewatering of historical underground workings progressing in parallel.

Prieska's second phase would target the more extensive Deeps resource as dewatering, shaft rehabilitation and infrastructure provision are completed.

Exploration will continue alongside development. Five extension targets have been identified at depth and are planned to be evaluated through underground drilling as access improves, providing further potential to expand the resource base and extend mine life.

With Prieska moving from planning to executable work packages, Torque Africa was appointed as drilling contractor and Enprotec to build, own, operate and transfer a 20 000 t/m Uppers concentrator.

At Okiep, Flat Mines' definitive feasibility study completion facilitated the completion of a...

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.

Nasdaq-listed Critical Metals Corporation has released a study on its proposed 50:50 joint venture rare earths refinery with State-owned Romanian entity Fabrica de Prelucrare a Concentratelor de Uraniu, finding it will require capital expenditure of $1.85-billion.

The proposed refinery is being designed to process up to 100 000 t/y of eudialyte concentrate feed and, based on current modelling, produce about 27 943 t/y of rare earth and critical metal products in the form of chloride salts and other ultra-pure products.

The expected byproducts include 25 670 t/y of high purity silicon dioxide, or silica, powder. Revenue from the silica byproduct production alone can reach $600-million a year.

Critical Metals says the silicate recovery system will contribute value in revenue and avoided acid costs, potentially transforming a conventional waste stream into a significant revenue contributor.

The refinery's total revenue is expected to be $2.2-billion a year before operating costs, taxes and capital recovery.

Critical Metals finds the refinery to have a net present value of $4.5-billion, an internal rate of return of 55% and a projected payback period of two years.

The company says the proposed refinery will use a multistage, mixed-acid leach process at elevated temperatures, followed by cascading recovery steps designed to produce high-purity rare earth salts, metals and critical metal salts for advanced industrial, aerospace, technology and defence applications.

A key feature of the proposed process is the recovery of materials that would traditionally report to tailings, including silica and potentially alumina, iron and copper. Current process modelling targets a tailings stream of about 1% of feed tonnage, supporting the company's objective of developing a lower-waste processing route.

The refinery can also produce between 50 t and 70 t of high-purity hafnium every year during the first five years, together with 20 t to 30 t of hafnium chloride.

Critical Metals is considering multiple shipping and rail routes for the movement of concentrate from the Tanbreez rare earths project, in Greenland, to the proposed refinery location in Romania. If developed as currently contemplated, the refinery has the potential to become a significant Western supplier of rare earths and critical metals.

"This represents a significant evolution in the Tanbreez value proposition and reinforces our commitment to a true mine-to-metals strategy. By combining Tanbreez's exceptional eudialyte resource with advanced processing in Romania, we have the potential to capture substantially more value from every ton of material while producing the high-purity rare earths and critical metals that Western markets increasingly require," says Critical Metals executive chairperson and CEO Tony Sage.

Importantly, he adds, the company's proposed process is designed to recover valuable by-products such as high-purity silica rather than treating them as waste, potentially improving both the economic and environmental profile of the operation.

"We believe this integrated approach has the potential to establish Critical Metals as an important non-Chinese supplier of critical materials to the European and US markets, with Tanbreez providing the resource foundation and the proposed Romanian refinery delivering the downstream value."