THE emptiness of the enormous Cape Town International Conference Centre, venue of the 2016 Mining Indaba, was palpable. At past events it has been difficult to weave your way down its corridors and in between stands. This year the corridors were nearly deserted, as was the cavernous exhibition hall. Here there were stalls that ranged from a scattering of mining companies, including sponsors like Anglo American and Rio Tinto, to those providing flight services, health care, equipment and engines.
One attendee, who had sneaked into the event using someone else’s identity tag to have a quick look around and see if there were any mining companies to chat to in the stalls, was glum about the constant presence of suppliers.
This despite the organisers of the conference repeatedly being told that it was problematic for investors who wanted easy access to the junior mining or exploration companies that used to frequent the event.
The price of the Indaba also was deeply problematic for a number of South Africans who either attended the event or went to Cape Town to meet a swarm of mining executives who were camped in hotels around the city and engaged in an investors’ “speed-dating” session organised by Barclays Absa at the Radisson.
“All the SA majors [big mining companies] were definitely in town. Few seemed to be Indaba delegates, though,” said a financier, who said he’d had far more meetings outside the conference centre than inside — a distinct change from a few years ago.
“So Cape Town Mining Week will continue, and the Mining Indaba will be the anchor tenant, but the industry is no longer willing to pay R29,000 for a delegate’s badge,” the financier said.
The Indaba essentially runs from Monday to Wednesday afternoon, with many delegates not turning up for the half-day on Thursday, which tends to lean towards softer topics and lower-key speakers.
One Australian delegate working in West Africa said he’d come scouting for contacts but had largely drawn a blank.
“Everywhere I walked in the venue there were guys trying to sell me brand-new, shiny PPE [personal protection equipment] or cheap Chinese pumps. I just don’t see the value in it anymore,” he said.
A third delegate said: “The event is simply overrun with suppliers. The investors are all at the Barclays and other conferences.”
The CEOs addressing delegates, in generally poorly attended presentations, came in, delivered their speeches and left.
“I found the presentations to be particularly poor — standard investor-relations stuff by CEOs and others, without any clear thought for the audience, those who had paid to participate,” the third delegate said.
“The event is crazily overpriced. I would be surprised if it survived for more than another year or two.”
A measure of the conference was the keynote opening speech by the SA mining minister. It was one of the rare times the main presentation hall seethed with delegates. But many felt deflated after Mosebenzi Zwane, the third mines minister in as many years, had spoken, saying there wasn’t much new and certainly nothing definite in his speech.
Zwane did not, until asked later at a media conference, outline a time line for the finalisation of the bill amending the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act, a piece of legislation that has been in the making since 2012 and has caused enormous uncertainty in the SA mining environment.
The repeated demands from various government delegates for the beneficiation of SA minerals would have rung less hollow if, at a panel discussion on the country’s manganese industry, it hadn’t been stated that smelters were rapidly closing or scaling back as a 255% increase in electricity prices since 2009 had ravaged the sector that was adding value to SA’s raw manganese production.
It was utterly inconceivable, said one delegate, that government could continue pushing the beneficiation agenda when almost everything government-related worked against the practicalities of setting up new businesses or enabling existing businesses to operate. The cost of electricity was cited as the main obstacle.
Even a traditional drawcard like Robert Friedland, founder and chairman of Ivanhoe Mines, appeared to be going through the motions and punting his company. Rolling out clichés he’s used for years, such as that nobody working on the company’s mines will “lift anything heavier than a pencil” and that underground workers will operate in the comfort provided by air-conditioned machines, the normally ebullient Friedland failed to ignite interest in his small audience.
The organisers will have to take complaints more seriously than they have to date, or face losing their relevance as a leading mining African conference. Other, arguably more tailored, events may lure mining company officials and investors away by giving them exactly what they want.
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