SA does process its metals into final products - for now

Valterra Platinum's gigantic refinery shows that some of the beneficiation rhetoric is ill-founded. But a stumbling South Africa may never see such plants built again

- By Ed Stoddard

One of the narratives that has become ingrained in ANC circles and promoted by the likes of Minerals and Petroleum Minister Gwede Mantashe is that South Africa’s mining sector is exporting raw ore rather than processing the minerals and metals it extracts.

But that is simply not true, as a recent media and analyst visit to Valterra Platinum's processing facilities on the outskirts of Rustenburg made gin-clear.

“There is quite a bit of chat around the mining industry needing to beneficiate, and you can’t just paint the entire industry with the same brush,” Valterra CEO Craig Miller said during a Q&A at the conclusion of the tour.

“We actually beneficiate the product to its very end state. It’s a platinum bar, and from that you can make a platinum ring, but that’s the jeweller’s responsibility. Predominantly, the PGM [precious group metals] producers in South Africa beneficiate them to the final product.”

This was on full display at the precious metals refinery (PMR) of Valterra, formerly Anglo American Platinum before its demerger in May of this year.

It was an eyeopening experience as we witnessed the later stages of the production process. There were several technical demonstrations and presentations that flew over my head, but the final stage — when platinum or palladium is melted, poured and then cooled, with the end product in this case being a bar — was both visible and tangible.

The initial product is not perfectly bar-shaped, and a few of the ones that we saw emerge from the process resembled a rectangle with a bulge jutting out from the top.