Mining and Exploration

Seeing as Africa produces more than 60 different metal and mineral products, and is a major source of several of the world’s most important commodities, it is little wonder that it remains an area of profound interest for mining companies. While exploration and mining developments across the continent have undoubtedly increased in recent decades, there is still considerable scope for expansion. 

Mr Kloppers’ retirement will see him replaced by Andrew Mackenzie who is currently head of the company’s base metals business.

Announcing his retirement, Mr Kloppers said the decision was "never going to be easy, however after almost 20 years with BHP Billiton, 12 as a senior executive and nearly six as CEO, I believe now is the right time to pass the leadership baton."

"The board has decided that Andrew is the right person to lead BHP Billiton in a changing global environment," the company said in a statement.

As the mining sector in South Africa has evolved, so too have the mechanisms, tools, items of equipment and software needed to service what is a dynamic, complex and challenging industry. It was in the 1980s that MineWare’s managing director, Paul Saker, first identified the fact that this rapidly growing industry required access to much more detailed financial analysis when it comes to fixed and variable cost modelling.

How can it be that a significant copper deposit, known for over 100 years, owned and operated by a progression of operators – including two leading international names – can struggle along for 93 years and then become an overnight success in 2005?

Ghana holds a particularly special place in recent African history, being as it was the first sub-Saharan Africa nation to gain independence from European colonialism in 1957. In the near five decades since the country has gone on to become one of the fastest growing economies in the world with one of the highest GDP per capita in all of Africa.

As a result of the boom in mining, the South American nation of Chile today holds a number of important titles. These include being the world’s largest producer of copper, 32 percent of the world’s production to be exact, its only, and therefore leading, producer of natural nitrates and its leading producer of iodine, rhenium and lithium.

They say that in order to get a job done well you have to get your hands dirty from time to time, and a truer statement was perhaps never spoken than when it comes to the mining industry. The sheer scale of the equipment used and the nature of the environments that are being operated in make mining a highly maintenance intensive undertaking. This inevitably results in a large concentration of dirt being produced.

When we last spoke to Roger Amelunxen, owner of Canadian-based Amelunxen Mineral Processing (Aminpro), in March 2012, he spoke about the raft of changes that has occurred in his field of expertise over the previous 15 years. Now, as we enter 2013, he is just as keen to discuss how the business has evolved in little more than 10 months since.

The most widely used of all minerals, iron accounts for approximately 95 percent of the world’s metal production in terms of weight. As the world’s third largest iron ore producer and exporter, Brazil has long reaped the financial benefits provided by one of its largest export products.