IM 2017 September 17 | Page 5

THE LEADER VO LU M E 1 2 • N U M B E R 9 Real Mining. Real People. Real Difference: the one-time southern African power house Founder and Publisher John Chadwick B.Sc. Min Eng Email: [email protected] Editor Paul Moore B.Sc (Hons), M.Sc. Email: [email protected] Editorial Board Professor Malcolm Scoble Robert E. Hallbauer Chair in Mining Engineering., University of BC, Vancouver Peter Knights Professor and Head of Division of Mining Stephen Stone West One Management Perth, Western Australia Dr. Andrew M. Robertson President, Robertson GeoConsultants Vancouver, Canada. Ed McCord Project Consultant Caterpillar Global Mining, USA Jason Nitz Fleet Management & Dispatch Superintendent Newmont Mining Corporation, USA Dr Terry Mudder Managing Director, TIMES Ltd, USA Simon Tarbutt Consultant, Santiago, Chile Dr. Mike Daniel Comminution Process Consultant CMD Consulting Pty Ltd Editorial Enquiries: T el: [phone] Fax [phone] Advertising Sales: Phil Playle Email: [email protected] [phone] Advertising Production Lynne Lane Email: [email protected] Design & Production Trevor Sheldon Email: [email protected] Circulation Enquiries [email protected] Website: www.im-mining.com Annual Subscription Enquiries: Emma Smith Email: [email protected] Annual Subscription UK and Europe £160, €230 Rest of the world US$270 International Mining (ISSN No: 1747-146X) is published monthly by Team Publishing Ltd, GBR and is distributed in the USA by Asendia USA, 17B South Middlesex Avenue, Monroe NJ 08831 and additional mailing offices. Periodicals postage paid at New Brunswick NJ. POSTMASTER: send address changes to International Mining, 17B South Middlesex Avenue, Monroe NJ 08831 Printed by The Manson Group, St Albans © Team Publishing Ltd 2017 ISSN 1747 -146X I The company soon moved out of the confines of South Africa assisting, through financial support, the development of the Bwana M’Kubwa mine, on the lucrative Copperbelt in Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia. Mines there were to become the backbone of Zambia’s economy, as they are today. It was 1926 when Anglo became the largest single shareholder in De Beers Consolidated Mines. That association was cemented in 1929 when Sir Ernest became Chairman of De Beers. The real move into Northern Rhodesia came in 1927 with an investment of £1 million to develop the N’kana mine in Kitwe – a mine that continues to expand its footprint as part of Mopani Copper Mines. In 1928 a key partnership was established with the discoverer of South Africa’s PGM- bearing reef, Hans Merensky, to establish Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Co (JCI or Johnnies). Anglo American Platinum was one of the companies that emerged from its break-up in the 1990s. In 1936 an innovative partnership establishing Boart International engineered new ways to use previously discarded inferior quality diamonds in drilling equipment. This evolved into a completely new branch of manufacturing for Anglo. In 1938 the foundations of the company’s South African headquarters at 44 Main Street in Johannesburg were laid. That building is still a Johannesburg landmark. 1953 saw further commodity diversification continue as new partnerships led to the opening of Anglo’s first uranium plant at Daggafontein mine in Gauteng province. In 1961 an investment in the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co in Canada marked the first significant mining investment beyond southern Africa, expanding its partnerships portfolio and production in zinc, copper and precious metals. In 1964, The Rockeater, a deep-water mineral prospecting vessel, was chartered by De Beers off the Atlantic coast of South West Africa, creating new scope for diamond discovery. In 1967, as a pioneer in the steel industry following the 1964 acquisition of Scaw Metals, and the formation of Highveld Steel and Vanadium Corp in 1965, the group developed IM uses, as preference, SI units throughout, so, for example, all tonnes are metric unless otherwise stated. All dollars are US unless otherwise stated n 1917, entrepreneur Ernest Oppenheimer established Anglo American, which celebrates its centenary on the 25th of this month. There are many milestones to remember for this company that at one time was far and away the biggest company in South Africa. Beyond its mines, its spread has covered banking and finance, property, timber, pulp and paper manufacture, construction, farming, food, viniculture, brewing, vehicle manufacture, publishing, precious metals refining and a wide variety of mining equipment. There was an old adage that what was good for General Motors was good for the USA, but during its first 75 years or so, that was far more apposite to Anglo and South Africa. On a visit to an Anglo mine in the second half of the 1980s, one would likely have been lowered underground in a shaft developed by LTA or Shaft Sinkers, in a cage supported by Haggie steel cables. In the mine would have been explosives and initiation systems from AECI, as well as drill bits, drills and other equipment from Boart (later to merge and become Boart Longyear). In the plant the grinding balls for the ball mills would probably have been produced by Scaw, and Johnson Matthey would perhaps have refined the precious metals products. Those were just a few of the companies in the ‘Anglo Empire’. The cross-holdings of Anglo American and De Beers were extremely complex and at one time embraced over 1,350 subsidiaries and associated companies. These included other mining houses like Charter, Consgold and JCI. In the late 1980s, according to David Pallister, Sarah Stewart and Ian Lepper in South Africa Inc., Anglo American Corp of South Africa (AAC) administered mines that produced 41% of the country’s gold, 57% of its uranium and 22% of its coal. De Beers then mined the bulk of South Africa’s diamonds. “When the other [mining] houses are taken into account,” the authors wrote, “the group’s control of South Africa’s gold and uranium rises to over 70%, with a slighter smaller but still dominant position in coal and platinum.” It was 1920 when The Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa (the forerunner of CDM and later Namdeb) was established. 1922 saw the merger between De Beers and Nobel that created African Explosives and Chemical Industries (AECI). SEPTEMBER 2017 | International Mining 3