SOUTH African asset manager Public Investment Corporation (PIC) has signed an agreement to cooperate with Dubai’s International Resources Holding (IRH) aimed at breathing life into underperforming mines in South Africa.
IRH is a unit of International Holding Company (IHC), a conglomerate controlled by United Arab Emirates’ National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Although relatively unknown until this year, IHC has targeted $1bn in acquisitions.
IHC CEO Syed Basar Shueb, told the Financial Times in May that its IRH subsidiary had signed joint venture agreements for iron ore mining in two places in Angola — Kassala Kitungo and Munenga — and that it was in advanced talks to mine nickel in Burundi as well as various metals in Tanzania and Kenya.
Shueb said the group had been formed from different mining interests belonging to IHC and Royal Group, an investment group also chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon that preceded IHC. “Whether it’s a mining or a refinery business of the gold, or the trading side of the business, we have consolidated everything under IRH,” Shueb said.
In terms of a memorandum of understanding, the PIC and IRH will also invest in green energy in South Africa as well as seek infrastructural upgrades to improve the country’s minerals export capacity.
It would also establish a geosciences company enabled with artificial intelligence in an effort to develop new mineral resources. “This MoU represents a step forward in realising South Africa’s full economic potential and addressing the current energy and logistics challenges the country is facing,” said Ali Rashdi, CEO of IRH.
“IRH has shown its value and technological capabilities in Zambia with the extraordinary turnaround of the Mopani Copper Mines,” said the PIC’s chief investment officer, Kabelo Rikhotso. “We look forward to moving this MOU forward to definitive agreements,” he said.
Smuggling report
According to a report by Bloomberg News in July, IRH Mining had dealings with gold smugglers in Africa. Citing a report by the United Nations, the newswire said IRH Mining’s Sibtein Alibhai discussed business with gold traffickers in his role at another venture established to clean up the mineral trade in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Their report on Congo didn’t mention IRH or Alibhai’s work for the Emirati company, but described him as having had meetings with gold smugglers as recently as March this year, said Bloomberg News.
IRH first came to prominence in South Africa after it outbid Sibanye-Stillwater for control of Zambia’s Mopani Copper.
The proposed partnership between ZCCM-IH and IRH should enable Mopani to increase copper production to at least 200,000 metric tons per annum, said Reuters. Mopani requires $300m investment to expand output over the next three years and an additional $150m to sustain operations, ZCCM said in September last year.
Sibanye-Stillwater appeared to be the favourite to take control of Mopani Copper following a competitive bidding process against China’s Zijin Mining Group which saw the South Africans team up with another Chinese company.
