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During the first day of the London Indaba, on June 25, held under the theme “Investing in Resources and Mining in Africa”, panel discussions unpacked what the continent’s mining jurisdictions could do to make the industry more attractive, the challenges of reduced available finance and how international stakeholders are partnering with African operators in pursuit of critical minerals and metals supply. Moshe Capital founder and CEO Mametja Moshe highlighted that Africa presented a compelling case for investment, owing to its growing youth population, high-grade resources that could be exploited using new technology to engender lower costs and available land to support elements such as renewable-energy projects.

With the global energy transition driving increased demand for key metals such as copper and cobalt, Zijin Mining Group expects copper demand to grow to 7.2-million tonnes a year in 2030. During a keynote address on the first day of this year’s London Indaba, Zijin deputy president Shaoyang Shen pointed out that Africa is the second largest copper producing continent, with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia being among two of the top ten copper producing countries in the world.

New power is needed by the Western mining industry, which is still functioning on a trailing old power business model. This was highlighted at Tuesday’s London Indaba, where a spotlight was shone on the urgent need of Western world mining companies to pay attention to the benefits that could emerge by working with far great cognisance to the far-reaching strides that have been taken by the Eastern world.

The ‘second wave’ of government’s Operation Vulindlela initiative is poised to be widened to include additional structural reforms to those that have been pursued to date in electricity, freight logistics, telecoms, water and skills with the goal of stimulating higher levels of economic growth over the coming five years. Established jointly by the Presidency and the National Treasury in October 2020 to accelerate priority structural reforms to overcome problems identified as “binding constraints” to economic performance, Operation Vulindlela is expected to continue as a flagship programme under the government of national unity.

The financial performance of the world’s Top 40 mining companies is under pressure owing to lower commodity prices and rising costs, which has resulted in revenues falling by more than 7% despite increases in the production of key commodities, management consultancy PwC stated in its ‘Global Mine’ report for 2024. The latest iteration of the report indicates a continuation of these trends moving forward, marking the first time since 2016 that industry revenues will fall for a second consecutive year.

Diversified miner and renewable energy company Exxaro Resources expects to report lower coal and iron-ore prices, as well as lower production, for the first six months of this year. With respect to the company’s key commodities, the average benchmark API4 Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) export price for the first six months of the year is expected to average $101/t, compared with $112/t in the second half of 2023, free-on-board (FOB), a decline from the previous six months.

Exxaro Resources is weighing its options for its Australian coal joint venture project with Anglo American following the mining giant’s planned exit from the business, an executive said on Tuesday. The South African coal miner and Anglo equally own the Moranbah South metallurgical coal project in Queensland. On May 14, Anglo announced plans to spin off or sell its coal, nickel, diamond and platinum businesses to focus mainly on energy transition metal copper.

JSE- and ASX-listed Orion Minerals’ shares will be placed in a trading halt, pending the release of an announcement regarding a capital raising. Orion expects to make an announcement to the market concerning this matter before the start of trade on June 27.

Africa-focused mining and development company Marula Mining has entered into an export logistics agreement with Scan Global Logistics (SGL) Group’s Kenya-based subsidiary, SGL Kenya, for the transportation and export of manganese ore from the Larisoro manganese mine located in Samburu County in northern Kenya. Under the terms of the logistics agreement, SGL Kenya will manage and oversee all aspects of the ore transportation and shipping process, including the loading and railing of containers to the Port of Mombasa, export booking process, customs clearance and all port-related processes, sea freight and shipping arrangements.

London-listed Blencowe Resources, together with its Chinese partner Jilin New Technology Graphite Co, is nearly done with processing 600 t of raw material from the Orom-Cross graphite project, in Uganda. Blencowe says this commercial-scale testing in China has been crucial to fast-tracking product qualification, bypassing the need for a costly pilot-scale graphite processing facility at site.