What If The Biggest Mistake Resource-rich Countries Make Is Believing That Mining Is Where The Real Value Lies? For as long as I can remember, South Africa has been debating beneficiation. Every few years, the conversation returns with renewed energy, usually accompanied by the comforting idea that if we simply beneficiate more of our minerals […]
March 9, 2026 While Everyone Watches Oil In The Strait Of Hormuz, The Platinum Market May Have Far Less Margin For Error Everyone is obsessed with the Strait of Hormuz today. The cameras are fixed on the 20 million barrels of oil moving (or not moving) through that narrow corridor, and the panic (as usual), […]
March 3, 2026 How to ‘keep your head when everyone else is losing theirs’ (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling!) Those that work closely with me have at times characterized me as ‘volcanic’ – I can erupt with irritation in the moment. I’m not proud of this, but parachute me into a real crisis and my […]
My Musings Inspired by Rudyard Kipling A few Sundays ago on a hot summer’s morning, we were sitting in a crowded church in Bryanston when the amazing pastor’s use of my all-time favourite poem, ‘If’, reminded me of the role this lovely poem has played in my life over the years. Of course, my wife […]
An Optimistic View Good evening colleagues, friends, fellow mining industry participants. It is always slightly dangerous to give an ex-mining CEO a microphone during dinner. We are genetically predisposed to three things: long-life assets, longer feasibility studies… and very long speeches. I will try to not disappoint! Let me start with the obvious: if you […]
NERSA (National Energy Regulator of SA) has approved temporary electricity tariff relief for South Africa’s ferrochrome producers, with the stated intention of protecting as many as 24,000 jobs. Do we all agree that this announcement should be applauded by everyone who cares about jobs? Well, no! I am not sure we should. To me, it […]
Is there morality in mining? Morality – noun (principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour). Mining is a trade that makes and breaks nations. Morality is often the differentiator between those two outcomes. It builds roads, towns, and schools, sometimes it leaves scars that last for generations, not only […]
At the start of 2026, it has become fashionable to describe the world as unstable. Markets are volatile, geopolitics are tense, and institutions appear increasingly fragile. I think that framing misses the point. What we are experiencing is not instability in the sense of randomness. It is exposure. Like in the well-known story, the Emperor […]
At the start of a year, especially one like 2026, the pressure is always to look forward. Forward towards growth. Forward towards opportunity. Forward towards fixing what is broken. But I have learned, sometimes the hard way, that forward momentum without reflection is not progress. It is acceleration without steering. The older I get, the […]
Ending the Year Hopeful, Grounded, and With Zero BS As the year draws to a close, it’s worth pausing, not to gloss over the difficulties, but to recognise the progress that did happen, often despite them. I find myself less interested in grand conclusions and more reflective about the people and moments that made the […]
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