THE SUSTAINABILITY ISSUE | VOLUME 2 | 2020
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
T
Mining reimagined for local sector
he divestment activity in the South African mining industry by many large diversified multinational companies who are spinning off their local South African operations to junior or mid-tier local mines has left host of challenges in its wake. Local miners have a responsibility to their host communities, shareholders, suppliers, SME contractors and employees to realise the potential of their natural resources in a sustainable manner. There are various roadblocks experienced by many empowered, post-divestment miners. These include: • challenging geology – high costs of deep mining of remaining ore reserves • core mining skills drainage – emigration of South African skilled workforce to Australia and North America • lack of knowledge transfer by skilled retirees to newer employees joining sector • deglobalisation agenda of global economies – national interests trumping foreign capital investments to emerging markets • a technology landscape based on first- and second-generation traditional mining models. The operational problems faced by new entrants, as they relate to the bottlenecked rail system, inefficient scheduling, wasted consumables, labour-intensive activities, and siloed technical competencies and capabilities across mining operations are widely known.
Smartening up Smart leaders in the sector are looking to new technological approaches and advances to optimise their operations by driving platform thinking, digitisation and integration between their processes. Some are flipping the conventional mining business model on its head. In an industry that typically thinks in 20 to 30 years’ time horizons, based on life of mine projections, future leaders in this sector will likely be those who are comfortable with making fundamental shifts from the conventional thinking of mining – i.e. purely maximising current mine capacity (supply side) and moving towards an integrated
Divestment in the local mining sector has presented numerous industry challenges, yet also the potential for a new dawn. By Toboko Molete*
planning and scheduling process that is based on local and global customers (demand driven). There is also increased pressure on mine managers to improve productivity and efficiency while reducing costs in a post-Covid-19 era. The trade-off between productivity and costs doesn’t exist and South African mines are forced to do more with less – less readily available reserves, less capital investment and less human capital. New leaders in mining are faced with the business imperatives of mining smarter, more sustainably and efficiently. Mining technology has indeed been democratised, and it is time for South African mines to envision mining without barriers of the cost of technology or core mining skills. *Toboko Molete is the managing director at Lesika. Lesika a niche mining technology consulting firm with a global network of OEM mining technology suppliers and local engineers, with a mission to make smart mining solutions accessible to emerging and junior miners through shared platforms and skilled resources.
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