THERE is a definite air of forward momentum in South Africa’s much ignored minerals exploration sector. On the back of a R600m commitment from Anglo American (Anglo-Teck when it’s formed) and a new R1.35bn fund from Government’s Public Investment Corp., the world’s largest miner BHP has unveiled plans for a collaboration aimed at trawling through the country’s exploration data.
Tim O’Connor, head of BHP’s exploration, said on Friday the plan is to establish an “ecosystem” based on extensive mineral resources data captured by South Africa. Its collaboration will be with the Council for Geoscience, a unit of the Department of Minerals and Petroleum Resources.
“The fact that we haven’t managed to digitise nearly enough, globally, and perhaps here (in South Africa) as well, is an opportunity space for us to fill,” he said in a press call. Developing new resources was becoming increasingly difficult globally, therefore not having sufficient data is a major disadvantage.
BHP has no plans to co-invest with the CGS. Said O’Connor: “It is, fundamentally, a level of understanding where we can collaborate openly around … the principle of geoscientific understanding. So we can share our view of mineral systems, or our view of the geoscience, of what data matters, and what gaps there might be that would encourage discovery, largely on a regional basis”.
On Feburary 2, BHP announced it would partner with JSE and ASX-listed Orion Minerals to advance Orion’s extensive copper and zinc exploration programme in the Northern Cape. The $500,000 investment is part of BHP’s 2026 Xplor programme in which it partners with early-stage exploration and technology companies particularly in the field of critical minerals. It marks the company’s first major investment in South Africa in years.
BHP is also part of Open Subsurface Data Universe. Initially established for the oil and gas sectors, OSDU creates common, open standards in mining, said O’Connor. It “… allows the industry to collaborate, and perhaps something that can be done with the survey in due course,” he said.
It is perhaps just as well there is no coinvestment planned. As part of its enterprising plan to open up its datasets to the private sector in general, the CGS has managed to muddy the waters by saying it will take equity in successful exploration ventures – thus making itself referee and player.
Nonetheless, BHP’s involvement is belated but critical acknowledgment that South Africa’s Northern Cape in particular is highly prospective. Errol Smart, Orion’s former CEO, commented in 2021 the Northern Cape was vastly under-estimated. “Geologically, I can tell you, having gone around the world and looked at terrains, the Northern Cape is an absolute dripping roast.”
