[miningmx.com] — South Africa is to build a R15bn rare metals processing complex, Business Report newspaper reported on Thursday.
Rare earths, some of the world’s most obscure elements, are used in familiar devices including cell phones, flat-screen TVs and microwave ovens.
“We export titanium sands for $400 a ton, when we can receive $1 000 a ton through beneficiation. This is why Africa needs to get beneficiation off the ground,” Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, told the newspaper at a media briefing on revised Industrial Policy Action Plan.
The plan is an ambitious four-year programme that intends to create a total of 129 000 jobs, including 43 000 direct and 86 000 indirect jobs.
He said most of the minerals South African companies took out of the ground, particularly iron ore and titanium, were exported in their raw state without any value being added by beneficiation, which crushes and separates ore into the various valuable substances and waste products.
The plant, which would produce high-value industrial metals, including titanium, zirconium, hafnium and silicon, is expected to establish 7 000 jobs.
The National Empowerment Fund would explore the potential of co-financing a rare metals beneficiation complex in Saldanha with local and foreign investors.
Rare earths are mostly produced by China, which unnerved global powers last year by threatening to restrict exports to help it settle political scores.
