JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Gold and uranium producer and platinum-mining aspirant Sibanye wants to be the new South African mining champion that the South African government and ruling African National Congress (ANC) have been calling for.

“We’ve basically put up our hand to say we’d like to be this new South African mining champion because we’re moving into other commodities,” Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman said in response to Deutsche Bank mining analyst Anna Mulholland at this week’s analyst and media conference on its proposed takeover of the Rustenburg Operations from Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) for R4.5-billion.

Froneman’s comments follow a call made in London in January by Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi for a  “national mining champion” to emerge from the corporate restructuring of mining companies currently under way domestically.

“I want a champion that is privately owned, run by South Africans and is a successful enterprise,” the Minister was quoted in the Financial Times as saying.

At the time, Ramatlhodi’s remarks echoed those made earlier by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who said in a guest column written for Mining Weekly that the ANC would like to see the emergence of a local mining champion to ensure that South Africa’s interests were taken to heart in the resources sector.

Froneman let it be known that he had engaged on the issue with both the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and the ANC both separately and jointly to discuss the movement of Sibanye into platinum and into becoming a diversified major listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

“We certainly have been well received but I don’t want you to interpret that as us having got approval. There’s still a long discussion to be had with the DMR,” Froneman responded in direct reference to the DMR approval needed for Sibanye’s acquisition of the Rustenburg Operations.

“The merits of the transaction are clear and it’s hard to imagine that there’d be resistance or push back on this transaction,” he added.

Mantashe, a former mineworker and union stalwart, has for long contended that South Africa’s JSE had been hurt by South African giants like Anglo American and Gencor, which morphed into Billiton and then BHP Billiton, migrating their primary listings to London.

In the case of BHP Billiton, a South African co-creation, the Australian government had not allowed the primary Australian listing to go to London alone and insisted on dual primary listings in both London and Sydney, which still persists today.

In contrast, the absence on the JSE of a large diversified major to level peg with Anglo American and BHP Billiton has raised eyebrows.

For example, Mark Cutifani, now CEO of Anglo American, expressed a keenness during the early part of his tenure in South Africa, to put the country back on the mining map by expanding AngloGold Ashanti, which he headed at the time, into a diversified major that could take on the biggest from a strong Johannesburg base.

More recently, there have been reiterated calls from mining companies for the government to establish a firm legislative underpin on which to launch a credible narrative that will extract long-term advantage from the estimated $2.3-trillion worth of metals and minerals that South Africa still has in the ground.

Froneman assured Mining Weekly Online that, based on current conditions, the jobs of the 16 500 employees at Rustenburg Operations would be safe should the Sibanye takeover, which is still awaiting competition authority, DMR and shareholder approval, go through.

Moreover, both the employees and the community would become part of the ownership of the asset through broad-based black economic empowerment under Sibanye, which has made it clear that it will not be claiming any empowerment credits from Amplats.

The company’s new platinum division would also be led by black CEO-designate Shadwick Bessit, a former director of operations at Impala Platinum.

Sibanye already mines gold and uranium and if the Rustenburg Operations deal goes through, its name is likely to be changed to Sibanye Resources to accommodate its diversification.

The takeover of the Rustenburg Operations would turn Sibanye into the world’s fifth largest platinum producer with an output of 800 000 oz of platinum-group metals a year, of which 500 000 oz will be platinum itself.

The company has begun an intensive search for appropriate technology to make the work of mining safer, easier and more productive.