<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s mining lobby group said it\u2019s pleased by discussions with the government over draft legislation to regulate the sector, but remains wary about the potential for an unwelcome shock.<\/p>\n
Minerals Council South Africa reacted angrily when the bill first appeared a year ago, complaining that its recommendations had been ignored. The state then partially backtracked by clarifying that exploration activities would be exempt from meeting minimum Black-ownership rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are encouraged by the nature of the engagements we have had\u201d with the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources during the past 12 months, the council\u2019s president, Paul Dunne, told reporters on Wednesday. \u201cHowever, we do not want to be surprised by a revised version\u201d that \u201cdoes not reflect the engagements we have held,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
South Africa introduced a mining charter in 2004 to distribute the benefits from mining more widely among the country\u2019s citizens to help repair the economic impact of racial discrimination during apartheid. At the time, that included a minimum Black shareholding target of 26%.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
One area where South Africa is faring particularly poorly is exploration, which is essential for identifying the mines of the future. Investment in prospecting has dropped for seven consecutive years and slumped more than 85% in the past three decades, according to data published by the country\u2019s statistics agency.<\/p>\n
Read:
BHP cuts green push across iron ore segment, media report says
Precious metals take a pounding over Iran war and rate jitters
Gold Fields cost increases a concern
Now\u2019s the time to buy PGM stocks<\/p>\n
South Africa is a major producer of gold, iron ore, coal and platinum-group metals. While the country remains the continent\u2019s top exporter of mineral products, there\u2019s faster growth and more dealmaking in the mining sectors of nations such as Guinea, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Disputes with government and policy uncertainty means South Africa\u2019s mining industry \u201chas not delivered its full potential\u201d in recent decades, according to Dunne, who\u2019s also the chief executive officer of Northam Platinum Holdings. Despite the broadly positive talks with the government, there\u2019s still \u201ca long and challenging road ahead of us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Minerals Council \u2013 which counts large firms like Exxaro Resources, Sibanye Stillwater and Harmony Gold Mining among its members \u2013 also reiterated the \u201curgent need\u201d for South Africa to streamline the mining rights\u2019 application process, which is much simpler in other African nations.<\/p>\n
The government has repeatedly postponed the implementation of an online registry \u2013 or cadastre \u2013 that displays all mining and prospecting rights. The delays are making the mining industry \u201cless confident\u201d about the eagerly awaited database, the council\u2019s CEO Mzila Mthenjane said at the same event.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
#miners #talks #fear #policy #shock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa\u2019s mining lobby group said it\u2019s pleased by discussions with the government over draft legislation to regulate the sector, but remains wary about the potential for an unwelcome shock.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4967,2500,678,1525,2463],"class_list":["post-4366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-fear","tag-miners","tag-policy","tag-shock","tag-talks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}