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Green iron-ore is a great South African export opportunity, Joburg Indaba hears
Episode 63
Published 3 weeks, 3 days ago
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Making green iron-ore for exportation is a great opportunity, South Africa's Joburg Indaba heard on Thursday, October 8, when Kearney South Africa energy partner Frances Phillips drew attention to South Africa's renewable-energy, iron-ore and platinum group metals (PGM) endowments in urging that South Africa's green hydrogen thoughts extend beyond green hydrogen molecules alone.
In response to a question during a panel discussion chaired by NOA Group CEO Karel Cornelissen, Phillips said: "There's opportunity for us to bring the renewable energy that can make green hydrogen together with some of the mineral deposits that we have."
Critical elements would, however, include having the renewable energy, and rail and port infrastructure in place to facilitate export.
"But, absolutely, there's an opportunity around how we take the renewable energy, make green hydrogen, but maybe not to export green hydrogen, and then use that to add value benefits on local grounds before we export it to other countries. A big opportunity there," Phillips pointed out in the panel discussion in which Seriti Resources CEO Mike Teke, National Transmission Company South Africa CEO Monde Bala, and Eskom GM strategy Matthew Mflathelwa also took part and which was covered by Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
"We all know that we are endowed with renewable energy, a critical element of making green hydrogen. But unfortunately, I think we've not managed to get the bankability across the value chain, and I think there's a number of reasons for that – demand, infrastructure, ports, reliability of electricity. There's many factors that have unfortunately contributed to this, but it doesn't mean that there isn't still opportunity, and maybe I must declare my bias: I was a metallurgist and a steelmaker before I became an energy strategist."
Viewed as a second opportunity by Phillips is PGM- and green hydrogen-linked component manufacturing.
In opening the discussion on the subject of South Africa's renewable energy generation advance, Cornelissen drew attention to well north of R100-billion rands being committed in the last 12 months to build additional generation capacity "for this country that we love so much, and this is not a one-off commitment. I believe we're going to do this every year for the next 20 to 25 years.
"It's estimated that this is going to be a R3-trillion energy transition, and I think if we play our cards right, this could be the stimulus that our South African economy needs for explosive growth," Cornelissen added.
The day's three themes were the just transition, ensuring that South Africa gets maximum benefit out of this transition, and the energy trilemma, which put in simple words, he said, related to "how does one balance reliability, affordability, and the desire for a clean future".
Meanwhile, South Africa's electricity generation hub was described by Bala as moving from Mpumalanga to the Northern Cape, where the national electricity grid was weakest.
Mflathelwa drew attention to the newly launched Eskom Green having an ambition to generate 32 GW of renewable energy by 2040, helped on by putting 2 GW into the market this year and 6 GW by 2030.
And Kearney spoke of the prioritisation of energy storage to alleviate stability challenges, as well as the introduction of gas. At the centre would be the grid being able to get power from where it is produced to where it is needed and remaining stable through every different technology mix into the future.
Cornelissen: How do we make sure that this is a just transition?
Teke: It's interesting for us to look at the crisis we faced with loadshedding in 2023, when we had something like 6 9
Making green iron-ore for exportation is a great opportunity, South Africa's Joburg Indaba heard on Thursday, October 8, when Kearney South Africa energy partner Frances Phillips drew attention to South Africa's renewable-energy, iron-ore and platinum group metals (PGM) endowments in urging that South Africa's green hydrogen thoughts extend beyond green hydrogen molecules alone.
In response to a question during a panel discussion chaired by NOA Group CEO Karel Cornelissen, Phillips said: "There's opportunity for us to bring the renewable energy that can make green hydrogen together with some of the mineral deposits that we have."
Critical elements would, however, include having the renewable energy, and rail and port infrastructure in place to facilitate export.
"But, absolutely, there's an opportunity around how we take the renewable energy, make green hydrogen, but maybe not to export green hydrogen, and then use that to add value benefits on local grounds before we export it to other countries. A big opportunity there," Phillips pointed out in the panel discussion in which Seriti Resources CEO Mike Teke, National Transmission Company South Africa CEO Monde Bala, and Eskom GM strategy Matthew Mflathelwa also took part and which was covered by Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
"We all know that we are endowed with renewable energy, a critical element of making green hydrogen. But unfortunately, I think we've not managed to get the bankability across the value chain, and I think there's a number of reasons for that – demand, infrastructure, ports, reliability of electricity. There's many factors that have unfortunately contributed to this, but it doesn't mean that there isn't still opportunity, and maybe I must declare my bias: I was a metallurgist and a steelmaker before I became an energy strategist."
Viewed as a second opportunity by Phillips is PGM- and green hydrogen-linked component manufacturing.
In opening the discussion on the subject of South Africa's renewable energy generation advance, Cornelissen drew attention to well north of R100-billion rands being committed in the last 12 months to build additional generation capacity "for this country that we love so much, and this is not a one-off commitment. I believe we're going to do this every year for the next 20 to 25 years.
"It's estimated that this is going to be a R3-trillion energy transition, and I think if we play our cards right, this could be the stimulus that our South African economy needs for explosive growth," Cornelissen added.
The day's three themes were the just transition, ensuring that South Africa gets maximum benefit out of this transition, and the energy trilemma, which put in simple words, he said, related to "how does one balance reliability, affordability, and the desire for a clean future".
Meanwhile, South Africa's electricity generation hub was described by Bala as moving from Mpumalanga to the Northern Cape, where the national electricity grid was weakest.
Mflathelwa drew attention to the newly launched Eskom Green having an ambition to generate 32 GW of renewable energy by 2040, helped on by putting 2 GW into the market this year and 6 GW by 2030.
And Kearney spoke of the prioritisation of energy storage to alleviate stability challenges, as well as the introduction of gas. At the centre would be the grid being able to get power from where it is produced to where it is needed and remaining stable through every different technology mix into the future.
Cornelissen: How do we make sure that this is a just transition?
Teke: It's interesting for us to look at the crisis we faced with loadshedding in 2023, when we had something like 6 9