Miningweb Weekly: Peter Major - "SA holds the minerals the world is fighting for"

Global powers are scrambling for critical minerals, and their first stop is South Africa. Mining expert Peter Major tells Alec Hogg why SA could become the world’s one-stop minerals shop - if government learns to play its cards right, cut the red tape, and “sell to anyone at the best price possible.” Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.BizNews Reporter.South Africa has spent the past two decades watching its mining sector wilt under collapsing infrastructure, ballooning red tape, and chaotic governance. Yet suddenly, the country is back in the spotlight. The European Union has knocked on our door first for a minerals deal. China is scrambling to secure supply chains. The United States is stockpiling metals like it is preparing for war.According to mining expert Peter Major, this is not a coincidence. It is a sign that the world has realised what South Africa forgot. We are the world’s minerals superstore. If the global economy needs to rearm itself for a new kind of battle, you start where the ammunition is.As Major tells Alec Hogg, the EU’s new minerals strategy being directed at South Africa is exactly what would have happened a hundred years ago. The instinct has always been the same. If you want chrome, diamonds for cutting tools, copper for wiring, aluminium for manufacturing or rare earths for batteries and weapons systems, you come here first. You do not start in Europe or America, you start where geology put the jackpot.Major jokes that Africa is full of minerals, but when you shake the continent, gravity sends most of them to the bottom of the map. South Africa is the lucky basin. Almost every mineral known to mankind is here in large quantity. The only trick is getting the governments of the world to see it. And now they do, because modern conflict is being fought with critical metals instead of bullets.In his view, economics today is war. America and China are fighting a trade battle. China controls most rare earth processing and can choke the world whenever it wants. America responds with tariffs. Europe is caught in the middle as collateral damage. So Europe has woken up and is scrambling to source minerals before it is shut out. That is why a European delegation came to South Africa first.Major says South Africa is in a perfect position if we simply learn how to play hardball. We claim to be “non-aligned” politically, yet we have never treated our mineral exports that way. Now is the moment to stop picking sides and start naming prices. South Africa could sell to anyone, on our own terms, rather than begging for investment. Minerals are leverage. This is power that could fix the economy faster than any government rescue plan.He describes South Africa’s potential as one stop shopping. You do not need to waste time negotiating with ten different countries when you can get nearly everything from one. That should put South Africa in the driver’s seat, but instead we have spent years trapped in over regulation, failing rail systems, collapsing ports, and an electricity provider that has crippled smelters and furnaces.Meanwhile, the world is looking at our rare earth potential with hungry eyes. Steenkomsraal in the Western Cape, believed to be the richest rare earth deposit on earth, is quietly preparing to return to production. Major confirms he has spoken with its leadership and the big news is that the radiation barrier that once seemed to threaten the project is far less of an issue than many believed. If the company can treat and remove the radioactive elements on site, it will be able to ship concentrate anywhere in the world without needing special regulatory clearance. That single breakthrough could change the entire debate. It means South Africa could refine and export rare earths with new freedom, and to whichever superpower offers the best deal.Private equity, Major says, is lining up. Off-takers are circling. China is paying attention. If South Africa plays its cards right, this could be the mineral deal of a lifetime. But he warns that we must not repeat the mistakes that chased investors away in the first place. We cannot pretend to be a superpower while running a lobby economy full of politically connected middlemen and suffocating legislation.The state should stop trying to pick winners and instead cut the red tape that punishes everyone. If South Africa simply created the most attractive investment environment on the planet, capital would flow here faster than we can dig. That would save smelters. It would fix furnaces. It would raise employment. It would re-industrialise the country. Minerals are not just ore. They are bargaining chips.There is no reason Barrick Gold should be preparing to invest nine billion dollars in Pakistan while our deep gold fields sit idle. Pakistan is unstable, dangerous, and surrounded by conflict. South Africa is a constitutional democracy with no military junta threatening to nationalise mines or seize cash. Yet our own policies chase capital away and send it into riskier jurisdictions because investors prefer danger with clarity instead of stability with confusion.The world is now signalling clearly. South Africa has what everyone wants. The only real question is whether our leaders will finally understand that mining is not a begging bowl. It is a weapon of economic power. And right now, the world is at war for minerals. We can either sell to everyone at our price or watch another global cycle pass us by.The opportunity of a lifetime is knocking. The door needs to be opened, not studied. And this time, South Africa must step out as a seller instead of a supplicant.

Miningweb Weekly: Peter Major - "SA holds the minerals the world is fighting for"

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