ANDY LLOYD: Is SA’s Bushveld Complex the key to providing metals?

In the mining industry there are few bigger hot spots than SA’s Northern Limb, which contains the largest reserves of platinum group metals (PGMs) in the world. According to current estimates, there are enough platinum group deposits in the area to supply the world’s demand for decades to come. 

And as University of Leicester PhD students Kate Canham and Erin Thompson will tell you, a consistent supply of critical metals like PGMs is vital to the world’s ambitions of achieving “net zero” by 2050. In fact, the demand for PGMs is set to skyrocket as companies and countries look to build a hydrogen economy, one of the gateways towards global net-zero targets.

Green hydrogen is one of the three priority sectors identified in the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan that was unveiled by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year. The concept of a just energy transition aims to ensure that those workers and communities affected by the transition, socially and economically, will be supported through the transition to a low-carbon world.             

PGMs are critical because they’re used as catalysts in electrolysers, which split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and fuel cells, which produce clean energy. Electrolysers are needed to produce green hydrogen, which can ultimately decarbonise sectors such as chemicals, agriculture (green ammonia), aviation (power fuels), and steel (green steel).

As fate would have it, PGMs are concentrated in parts of the Northern Limb, which covers hundreds of square kilometres to the north of the town of Mokopane (formerly Potgietersrus) in Limpopo. But the Limb has been largely underexplored compared to other parts of the Bushveld Igneous Complex. As a result, it still represents one of the world’s most interesting exploration frontiers.

This is why Canham and Thompson’s doctoral studies of the region are being funded by Anglo American as part of the greater Northern Limb 4D (NL4D) project, along with the Cardiff University and Camborne School of Mines, Exeter University in the UK.

These studies, and the NL4D research project as a whole, drive Anglo American’s efforts to better understand the geology of the area. This research will lead to environmentally sustainable exploration, mining, and processing of PGMs as exploration and mining activities in the Northern Limb increase.

While estimating reserves and resources in the Limb is an important part of ongoing research for Anglo, the researchers’ focus is more on how and why the Northern Limb differs so drastically from its Eastern and Western neighbours — and how these learnings can be applied in other operations both in the Northern Limb and around the world.

In layman’s terms, it all goes back to the way that magma flows billions of years ago saw a vast quantity of magma deposited in a relatively short space of time (in geographical terms, anyway), which affected where the precious metals are held, and how they should best be processed.

Few dispute the fact that mining has a crucial role to play in providing the metals and minerals needed for the world’s low carbon future and the long-term economic benefits for producer countries like SA. But it’s an unfortunate reality that you have to mine a lot of rock to get a relatively small amount of PGMs. In a modern circular economy, the focus is now on how to get the most out of these vast deposits with the minimum of waste, usage of scarce resources like water, and impact on the environment.

For miners like Anglo this means developing and implementing step-change innovations that transform the very nature of mining and how stakeholders experience its business. The ultimate goal is a world where mines are integrated, automated, carbon neutral and use far less water; that they are part of creating the environmentally and socially sustainable jobs, sectors and economies needed to help address climate change.

The Northern Limb will continue to be a catalyst in driving this new future.

Andy Lloyd is regional principal geologist for Africa, Europe and Australasia at Anglo American.