Mining Industry Of South Africa
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South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
was once the main driving force behind the history and development of
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
's most advanced and richest economy. Large-scale and profitable mining started with the discovery of a
diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...
on the banks of the
Orange River The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north ...
in 1867 by Erasmus Jacobs and the subsequent discovery and exploitation of the Kimberley pipes a few years later.
Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
rushes to Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton were precursors to the biggest discovery of all, the Main Reef/Main Reef Leader on Gerhardus Oosthuizen's farm Langlaagte, Portion C, in 1886, the
Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution. Origins In the modern day province of Mpumalanga, gold miners in the alluvial mines of B ...
and the subsequent rapid development of the gold field there, the biggest of them all. Diamond and gold production are now well down from their peaks, though South Africa is still number 5 in gold but remains a
cornucopia In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (), from Latin ''cornu'' (horn) and ''copia'' (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers ...
of mineral riches. It is the world's largest producer of chrome,
manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
,
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...
,
vanadium Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer ( pas ...
and
vermiculite Vermiculite is a hydrous phyllosilicate mineral which undergoes significant expansion when heated. Exfoliation occurs when the mineral is heated sufficiently, and commercial furnaces can routinely produce this effect. Vermiculite forms by the wea ...
. It is the second largest producer of
ilmenite Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral with the idealized formula . It is a weakly magnetic black or steel-gray solid. Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium and the main source of titanium dioxide, which is used in paints, printing ...
,
palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...
,
rutile Rutile is an oxide mineral composed of titanium dioxide (TiO2), the most common natural form of TiO2. Rarer Polymorphism (materials science), polymorphs of TiO2 are known, including anatase, akaogiite, and brookite. Rutile has one of the highest ...
and
zirconium Zirconium is a chemical element with the symbol Zr and atomic number 40. The name ''zirconium'' is taken from the name of the mineral zircon, the most important source of zirconium. The word is related to Persian '' zargun'' (zircon; ''zar-gun'', ...
. It is also the world's third largest coal exporter. South Africa is also a huge producer of iron ore; in 2012, it overtook India to become the world's third-biggest iron ore supplier to China, the world's largest consumers of iron ore. Due to a history of corruption and maladministration in the South African mining sector,
ANC The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
secretary-general
Gwede Mantashe Samson Gwede Mantashe, popularly known as Gwede Mantashe, (born 21 June 1955) is a South African politician and trade unionist, who as of 18 December 2017, serves as the National Chairperson of the African National Congress. He is also a former ...
announced at the beginning of 2013 that mining companies misrepresenting their intentions could have their licences revoked. In 2019, the country was the world's largest producer of
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...
; the world's largest producer of
chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...
; the world's largest producer of
manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
; the 2nd largest world producer of
titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...
; the world's 11th largest producer of
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
; the 3rd worldwide producer of
vanadium Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer ( pas ...
; the 6th largest world producer of
iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...
; the 11th largest world producer of
cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...
; and the 15th largest world producer of
phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...
. It was the world's 12th largest producer of
uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
in 2018.


History

Diamond and gold discoveries played an important part in the growth of the early South African economy. A site northeast of
Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
was discovered to have rich deposits of diamonds, and thousands of white and blacks rushed to the area of Kimberley in an attempt to profit from the discovery. The British later annexed the region of
Griqualand West Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, wh ...
, an area which included the diamond fields. In 1868, the republic attempted to annex areas near newly discovered diamond fields, drawing protests from the nearby British colonial government. These annexations later led to the
First Boer War The First Boer War ( af, Eerste Vryheidsoorlog, literally "First Freedom War"), 1880–1881, also known as the First Anglo–Boer War, the Transvaal War or the Transvaal Rebellion, was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 betwee ...
of 1880–1881. Native Africans had been mining gold in the
Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...
area since prehistory. When white settlers first found this gold for themselves in 1886, it triggered what would become the
Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution. Origins In the modern day province of Mpumalanga, gold miners in the alluvial mines of B ...
of 1886. Like the diamond discoveries before, the gold rush caused thousands of foreign expatriates to flock to the region. This heightened political tensions in the area ultimately contributing to the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
in 1899. Ownership of the diamond and gold mines became concentrated in the hands of a few entrepreneurs, largely of European origin, known as the
Randlord Randlords were the capitalists who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa in its pioneer phase from the 1870s up to World War I. A small number of European financiers, largely of the same generation, gained control of th ...
s. South Africa's and the world's biggest diamond miner,
De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...
, was funded by baron Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild in 1887, and
Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his Br ...
became the Founding Chairman of the board of directors in 1888. Cecil Rhodes' place was later taken by
Sir Ernest Oppenheimer Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (22 May 1880 – 25 November 1957), Order of Saint John (chartered 1888), KStJ was a diamond and gold mining entrepreneur, financier and philanthropist, who controlled De Beers Consolidated Mines, De Beers and founded the ...
, co-founder of the
Anglo-American Corporation Anglo American plc is a British listed multinational mining company with headquarters in London, England. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40% of world output, as well as being a major producer of diamonds, copper, n ...
with J.P. Morgan. The gold mining industry continued to grow throughout much of the early 20th century, significantly contributing to the tripling of the economic value of what was then known as the
Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Trans ...
. In particular, revenue from gold exports provided sufficient capital to purchase much-needed machinery and petroleum products to support an expanding manufacturing base. During
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
, Black South Africans were excluded from most skilled mining professions by the
Mines and Works Act The Mines and Work Act was a piece of legislation in South Africa, originally passed in 1911, amended in 1912 and 1926 before undergoing further changes in 1956 and 1959. This act legally established South Africa's employment "colour bar." and wa ...
1911. As of 2007, the South African mining industry employs 493,000 workers. The industry represents 18% of South Africa's $588 billion
USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
Gross Domestic Product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...
.


Coal

South Africa is the world's third largest coal exporter, and much of the country's coal is used for power production. (about 40%) 77% of South Africa's energy needs are provided by coal.


Gold

South Africa accounted for 15% of the world's gold production in 2002 and 12% in 2005, though the nation had produced as much as 30% of the yearly world output as recently as 1993. Despite declining production, South Africa's gold exports were valued at US$3.8 billion in 2005. As of end-2018, South Africa had a potential 6000 tonnes of reserves. In July 2018, the Mineral Council of South Africa announced that 75% of mines in South Africa were now unprofitable due to the declining gold reserves. Among the nation's gold mines are two of the deepest mines in the world. The
East Rand Mine East Rand Proprietary Mines (ERPM) is a 125-year-old underground gold mining operation on the Witwatersrand Basin at Boksburg, to the east of Johannesburg. The mine employed 3,850 people. It was the deepest mine in the world until 2008 at 3,585 ...
, in
Boksburg Boksburg is a city on the East Rand of Gauteng province of South Africa. Gold was discovered in Boksburg in 1887. Boksburg was named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, W. Eduard Bok. The Main Reef Road linked Boksburg ...
, extends to a depth of . A shallower mine is located at
TauTona The TauTona Mine or Western Deep No.3 Shaft, was a gold mine in South Africa. At approximately deep, it was home to the world's second deepest mining operation, rivalled only by the Mponeng Gold Mine, but was closed in 2018. The mine was one o ...
in
Carletonville Carletonville is a town in Gauteng and the seat of the Merafong City Local Municipality in the West Rand District Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, just north of the richest gold-mining area in the world. At 3,749 m, Western Deep Levels hold ...
, though plans are in place to begin work on an extension to the TauTona mine, bringing the total depth to over and breaking the current record by . At these depths the temperature of the rocks is . The gold in the
Witwatersrand Basin The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...
area was deposited in ancient
river delta A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition (geology), deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, res ...
s, having been washed down from surrounding gold-rich
greenstone belt Greenstone belts are zones of variably metamorphosed mafic to ultramafic volcanic sequences with associated sedimentary rocks that occur within Archaean and Proterozoic cratons between granite and gneiss bodies. The name comes from the green ...
s to the north and west.
Rhenium Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-gray, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an estimated average concentration of 1 part per billion (ppb), rhenium is one ...
-
osmium Osmium (from Greek grc, ὀσμή, osme, smell, label=none) is a chemical element with the symbol Os and atomic number 76. It is a hard, brittle, bluish-white transition metal in the platinum group that is found as a trace element in alloys, mos ...
isotope studies indicates that the gold in those mineral deposits came from unusual three billion year old mantle sourced intrusions known as komatiites present in the edenvale belts. The
Vredefort Dome The Vredefort impact structure is the largest verified impact structure on Earth. The crater, which has since been eroded away, was around across when it was formed. The remaining structure, comprising the deformed underlying bedrock, is loca ...
impact which lies within the basin and the nearby
Bushveld Igneous Complex The Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) is the largest layered igneous intrusion within the Earth's crust. It has been tilted and eroded forming the outcrops around what appears to be the edge of a great geological basin: the Transvaal Basin. It is ...
are both about a billion years younger than the interpreted age of the gold.


Diamonds

Ever since the Kimberley diamond strike of 1868, South Africa has been a world leader in diamond production. The primary South African sources of diamonds, including seven large diamond mines around the country, are controlled by the
De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...
Consolidated Mines Company. In 2003, De Beers operations accounted for 94% of the nation's total diamond output of . This figure includes both gem stones and industrial diamonds.  Diamond production rose in 2005 to over . The high value-added
diamond cutting Diamond cutting is the practice of shaping a diamond from a rough stone into a faceted gem. Cutting diamonds requires specialized knowledge, tools, equipment, and techniques because of its extreme difficulty. The first guild of diamond cutters and ...
industry is in decline in South Africa, mainly due to competition from low-cost labour countries such as
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...
.


Platinum and palladium

South Africa produces more
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...
and similar metals than any other nation. In 2005, 78% of the world's
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...
was produced in South Africa, along with 39% of the world's
palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...
. Over of platinum was produced in 2010, generating export revenues of US$3.82 billion. Palladium is produced in two ways: recovery and mining production. Currently Russia and South Africa are the biggest palladium producers in the world.


Chromium

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...
is another leading product of South Africa's mining industry. The metal, used in stainless steel and for a variety of industrial applications, is mined at 10 sites around the country. South Africa's production of chromium accounted for 100% of the world's total production in 2005, and consisted of of material. South Africa holds approximately three-quarters of the world's viable chromite ore resources. In 2012, there were fourteen separate FeCr smelters in South Africa, with a combined production capacity in excess of 4.7 Mt per annum.


Uranium

South Africa has the second-largest reserves of uranium in the world. The Nuclear Fuels Corporation of South Africa (NUFCOR) started processing uranium as a by-product of gold mining in 1967. Most of the uranium produced as a by-product of gold mining is concentrated in the gold fields of the Witwatersrand area. Uranium is more easily and readily available than gold in South Africa. There are a number of mining companies that process uranium from mines that they own. Anglo Gold Ashanti, Sibayane Gold Ltd, Harmony Gold Mining Co., First Uranium, and Peninsula Energy own or control most of the uranium-from-gold mining processing plants in South Africa. Though
uranium production Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. Over 50 thousand tons of uranium were produced in 2019. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia were the top three uranium producers, respectively, and together account f ...
in South Africa showed a decrease from 711t in 2000 to 579t in 2010, in 2011 930t were produced with a forecast of 2,000t by 2020. In 2016, Tasman Pacific Minerals, owned by Peninsula Energy started plans to open the first uranium ore mine, Tasman RSA.


Working conditions

Conditions on most South African mines are very similar to those elsewhere except for the gold mines where the low
geothermal gradient Geothermal gradient is the rate of temperature change with respect to increasing depth in Earth's interior. As a general rule, the crust temperature rises with depth due to the heat flow from the much hotter mantle; away from tectonic plate bo ...
, i.e. the rate at which the temperature goes up with depth, is often as low as 9 °C per kilometre depth (compared with a world average of about 25 °C/km), and this, combined with narrow and very continuous orebodies in hard and competent rocks, makes it possible to mine to depths unattainable elsewhere in the world. Silica dust is an ever-present potential hazard so that all drilling dust and loose rock has to be wetted down at all times to prevent
silicosis Silicosis is a form of occupational lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust. It is marked by inflammation and scarring in the form of nodular lesions in the upper lobes of the lungs. It is a type of pneumoconiosis. Silicos ...
, a lethal disease that attacks the lungs. Unfortunately the narrowness of the inclined reefs/orebodies prevents mechanisation except in a very few cases and most work is very labour-intensive. Ventilation requirements to keep working conditions tolerable are huge and a survey of the South African gold mines indicated that the average quantity of ventilating air circulated was some per 1000 ton of rock mined per month. Another serious problem is that of heat. In the deeper mines refrigeration of the intake air is often necessary to keep conditions tolerable and this is now becoming necessary on some platinum mines which, although shallower, have a higher geothermal gradient. Refrigeration is very energy hungry and it is currently a moot point whether
ESKOM Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. It was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) and was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). Eskom repre ...
, the state power company, can supply the necessary power after its recent problems, which will cut power supplies to 90% of previous levels until at least 2012, when a new power station is ready. The South African mining industry is frequently criticized for its poor safety record and high number of fatalities but conditions are improving. Total fatalities were 533 in 1995 and had fallen to 199 in 2006. Between 1984 and 2005, more than 11 000 mine workers died. The overall fatality rate in 2006 was 0.43 per 1,000 per annum but this hides some important differences. The gold mining rate was 0.71, platinum mining was 0.24 and other mining was 0.35. (For comparison, the rate in the Sixties was around 1.5—see any Chamber of Mines Annual of the period). The reason for the difference is quite clear; the gold mines are much deeper and conditions are both more difficult and dangerous than on the shallower platinum mines. Falls of ground dominated the causes at 72, machinery, transportation and mining accidents caused 70 and the remainder were classed as general. Of the falls of ground, approx. two-thirds were on the deep gold mines, a reflection of the extreme pressure at depth and continual movement of the
country rock Country rock is a genre of music which fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal s ...
. Amongst the machinery, mining and transportation fatalities were working on grizzlies without safety belts, working below loose rock in ore passes, getting crushed by that deadly combination of a loco and a ventilation door frame (the clearance between the two is only a few inches) and working on running conveyors, all direct contraventions of safety instructions. Drilling into misfires was also mentioned, a clear example of sloppy and unsafe mining. It is difficult to see how falls of ground can be eliminated given their frequent unpredictability, which is increasing with depth, and the difficulties in providing continuous roof support as on longwall coal mines due to the violence of a face blast in the hard rock of the gold mines but clearly much can be done to improve training and to instill a sense of safe working practice in the miners, many of whom are relatively inexperienced. Mine safety received considerable publicity in 2007, particularly after 3,200 workers were temporarily trapped underground at the Elandskraal mine after a compressed air pipe ruptured due to internal corrosion, broke loose and fell into the man-hoisting shaft. The workers were eventually rescued through the rock hoisting shaft after the blasting smoke had cleared. The incident caused South African President
Thabo Mbeki Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki KStJ (; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who was the second president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC ...
to mandate full safety audits for all operating mines. This audit has caused additional facilities to shut down temporarily, including the nation's largest gold mine located at
Driefontein Driefontein is the Driefontein Mine in the West Witwatersrand Basin (West Wits) mining field. The West Wits field was discovered in 1931 and commenced operations with Venterspost Gold Mine in 1939. In 1952, the West Driefontein mine is opened. I ...
.


Rand Rebellion

The
Rand Rebellion The Rand Rebellion ( af, Rand-rebellie; also known as the 1922 strike) was an armed uprising of white miners in the Witwatersrand region of South Africa, in March 1922. Jimmy Green, a prominent politician in the Labour Party, was one of ...
was a widespread strike amongst miners in the
Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...
area of the
Transvaal Province The Province of the Transvaal ( af, Provinsie van Transvaal), commonly referred to as the Transvaal (; ), was a province of South Africa from 1910 until 1994, when a new constitution subdivided it following the end of apartheid. The name "Trans ...
in the former
Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Trans ...
.


2007 strike

In 2007 the South African National Union of Mineworkers, which represents the nation's mineworkers, engaged in a series of talks with the Chamber of Mines, an industry group. The meetings also saw the participation of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, a body with mediation authority over the dispute. On 27 November 2007, the National Union of Mineworkers announced that South African mineworkers would go on
strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
to protest at unsafe working conditions. The strike took place on 4 December, and impacted over 240,000 workers at 60 sites across the country, including mines devoted to the production of gold, platinum, and
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...
.


2012 Lonmin strike

The Lonmin strike was a
strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
in August 2012 in the Marikana area, close to
Rustenburg Rustenburg (; , Afrikaans and Dutch: ''City of Rest'') is a city at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountain range. Rustenburg is the most populous city in North West province, South Africa (549,575 in 2011 and 626,522 in the 2016 census). In 2017 ...
,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
at a mine owned by
Lonmin Lonmin plc, formerly Lonrho plc, was a British producer of platinum group metals operating in the Bushveld Complex of South Africa. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Its registered office was in London, and its operational headquarters ...
one of the world's largest primary producers of platinum group metals (PGMs). A series of violent confrontations occurred between platinum mine workers on strike and the
South African Police Service The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1,154 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in eac ...
on Thursday, 16 August 2012, and resulted in the deaths of 34 individuals (30 were miners and 4 protesters), as well as the injury of an additional 78 miners. Occurring in the post-apartheid era, it was the deadliest incident of violence between police and the civilian population in South Africa since the 1960
Sharpeville Massacre The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng). After demonstrating against pass laws, a crowd of ...
which prompted South African President
Jacob Zuma Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan name Msholozi, and was a former anti-aparth ...
to set up an investigation. Gordon Farlam was appointed as the chairperson of a committee. Under the probe,
Cyril Ramaphosa Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African businessman and politician who is currently serving as the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa. Formerly an anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader, and ...
testified for lobbying with the Lonmin and SAPS. Ramaphosa also accepted to the commission that massacre could have been avoided if proper precautionary actions had been taken. Jacob Zuma declared a 66-day-long week of mourning. In 2014, platinum industry workers went on a strike that lasted five months. It was the longest strike in the history of South African mining. In 2019, a high court in Johannesburg approved the historic compensation deal for the miners who contracted the fatal silicosis disease when they worked in the mines.


Politics

There were few parties that advocate to
nationalizing Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
the industry, the most major one is
Economic Freedom Fighters The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is a South African left-wing to far-left pan-Africanist and Marxist–Leninist political party. It was founded by expelled former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) President Julius Malema, and hi ...
(EFF) that was founded on 2013 by
Julius Malema Julius Sello Malema (born 3 March 1981) is a South African politician and activist who is a Member of Parliament and the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a left-wing party which he founded in 2013. He was formerly the President of ...
after his expulsion from the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...
,Christophe Le Bec, ''Négociations salariales à haut risque en Afrique du Sud'',
Jeune Afrique ''Jeune Afrique'' (English: ''Young Africa'') is a French-language pan-African weekly news magazine, founded in 1960 in Tunis and subsequently published in Paris. It is the most widely read pan-African magazine. It is also a book publisher, unde ...
, 201

and by 2014 South African general election, 2014 elections became the third-largest party in South Africa. The others are: *
Black First Land First Black First Land First (BLF) is a black consciousness, pan-Africanist and revolutionary socialist political movement and political party in South Africa. It was founded in 2015 by Andile Mngxitama following his expulsion from the Economic Fre ...
*
Workers and Socialist Party The Workers and Socialist Party (WASP) is a Marxist and Trotskyist political party in South Africa affiliated to International Socialist Alternative. History Marxist Workers Tendency WASP began life as the Marxist Workers Tendency (MWT), opera ...


See also

*
African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation The African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC) is a state-controlled mining business in South Africa. The AEMFC was launched by Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, prompting concerns that the state might attempt to n ...
*
Asbestos and the law The mineral asbestos is subject to a wide range of laws and regulations that relate to its production and use, including mining, manufacturing, use and disposal. Injuries attributed to asbestos have resulted in both workers' compensation claims an ...


Bibliography

* Paul Jourdan, ''The Mining Industry in a Free South Africa'', Labour Research Service, 1993 * Leo Katzen, A. A. Balkema, ''Gold & the South African Economy: The Influence of the Goldmining Industry on Business Cycles and Economic Growth in South Africa, 1886-1961'', 1964


Novels about the mining industry in South Africa

*
Wilbur Smith Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born British-South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints ...
, ''
When the Lion Feeds ''When the Lion Feeds'' (1964) is the debut novel of Rhodesian writer Wilbur Smith. It introduces the Courtney family, whose adventures Smith would tell in many subsequent novels. In 2012, Smith said the novel remained his favourite because i ...
'',
1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...


References

{{Mining in Africa Mining in South Africa Industry in South Africa
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...