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44 E&MJ; • MARCH 2016 www.e-mj.com South Africa's Finest Converge on Cape Town African miners face serious issues to survive a challenging market By Gavin du Venage, South African Editor An African saying asserts that a gazelle fleeing a lion doesn't have to outrun the predator; just the slowest gazelle. At this year's African Mining Indaba, outlasting the weakest was very much the theme. The Indaba took place as usual under the benign shadow of Table Mountain in Cape Town. The mood inside the conven- tion center was unsurprisingly somber, fol- lowing a terrible 2015 for the industry, with the coming year looking to be as bad or perhaps even worse. Still, there was also a sense of fortitude, that muscling through to become a leaner, more modern industry was the way forward. Attendance Down, But Interest Remains Indaba CEO Jonathan Moore said numbers were down from last year, to around 6,000 delegates. This is quite a tumble from the almost 10,000 who crowded in during the heady days of the commodities rush. The numbers do not show the entire picture, however, as numerous people lurked on the fringes in hotels around the convention cen- ter, setting up meetings and arranging deals. "There are plenty of us who visit Cape Town because this is where everybody is," said one South African junior mining exec- utive, who asked not to be named, who was using the nearby Cullinan Hotel as a base. "I still get meetings, even though it would obviously be better to be in there," he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the convention center. He added that South Africans had the double whammy of a bad year of business coupled with the fact that the entry fee was dollar denominated at a time when the South African rand, Bloomberg figures show, was one of the five worst-performing currencies in the world. "Last year, it cost me about 16,000 rand for an Indaba pass; this year, it was closer to 23,000 rand because of the exchange rate. You can see my problem," the executive said. For those who did make it through the doors, there was much to discuss. Sadly, as the event got under way, word spread of an accident in which nearly 80 miners were trapped at Lily mine in South Africa's Mpumalanga province. Most were rescued, but three remained missing. (See Regional News –Africa, p. 18) "We do have the best proto teams on site and they are doing everything possible to find the missing workers and safely get them to surface," Chamber of Mines CEO Roger Baxter said. "Everything possible is being done." Baxter noted that last year 74 miners had died in accidents around the country, down from 84 fatalities the year before. At the same time, the state of mining itself was dire. "It's not easy for the indus- try at the moment—everyone is doing what they can to survive." More than 47,000 jobs had been lost in the past three years, and another 32,000 were at an immediate risk, Baxter said. Most of these were in the gold sector, followed by platinum. "CEOs don't wake up in the morning thinking about retrenching workers—their M I N I N G I N D A B A 2 0 1 6 Chamber of Mines CEO Roger Baxter says a large part of South Africa's mining industry was loss-making. (Photo: Gavin du Venage) Indaba CEO Jonathan Moore notes that 6,000 delegates registered for this years event, down from the nearly 10,000 at the event's peak. (Photo: Gavin du Venage)