S.Africa minister sinks mining nationalisation idea By Agnieszka Flak CAPE TOWN, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Nationalising South Africa's mines is "not the option", mines minister Susan Shabangu said on Tuesday in her strongest comments in a year against an idea that has unnerved investors in Africa's biggest economy. Under pressure at a mining industry conference to counter radical elements in the African National Congress (ANC) who want state ownership of the mines, Shabangu reiterated that nationalisation was "not currently policy". But she then went on to say nationalisation would mean South Africa missing out on a global commodities boom, just as it did for most of the last decade when prices soared and mining in countries such as China, Brazil and India posted huge growth, while investment in the industry stagnated in South Africa. "Is nationalisation going to give us jobs? No. We have got to make sure that we become responsible and we attract more investments, because we do need investments in South Africa," she told a news conference. "We have a boom in the mining sector. We can't afford to miss this opportunity. We lost it the last time. It cannot happen again," she said. "I still believe, I feel very strongly, that nationalisation would not be the option for South Africa." For years the pillar of white economic power, mining accounts for 8 percent of South African GDP and directly employs more than 500,000 people, but it has struggled to adapt and grow since the end of white-minority apartheid rule in 1994. In the last few months, the government has placed it at the heart of plans to tackle 25 percent unemployment, although most of its ideas involve more, not less, state involvement, leading to scepticism it will be able to turn the industry around.
Wild weather could push miners to reassess contracts, risks By James Regan and David Fogarty SYDNEY/SINGAPORE, Feb 8 (Reuters) - A surge in weather-related disasters in Australia could push global mining firms to overhaul supply contracts and rethink how bad weather will affect their operations and customers worldwide. Climate scientists say a warmer world will cause greater extremes of weather and some scientists have pointed to climate change as factors in some of the weather disasters in Australia. Miners needed to better assess the threats from floods, storms and droughts and include weather data and risks in mine management and commodity contracts, said Robert Milbourne, a mining and resources lawyer for global law firm Norton Rose. "Contracts must now more accurately address the consequences of weather variability and nondelivery due to weather," Milbourne, a former senior counsel for Brazilian miner Vale , told Reuters. "Traditionally, severe weather disruptions would be deemed beyond the reasonable expectation of either party. If severe weather events gradually become more foreseeable due to meteorological forecasting capacity, then that forecasting (and planning) capacity will need to be reflected in transactions," he said. A series of floods, drought and cyclones has badly disrupted mining in Australia, particularly in Queensland state, where coking coal miners have been hit by severe floods twice in three years. The latest floods along Australia's east coast, which began late last year, have led to 16 coal mines in Queensland covering total annual capacity of 94.3 million tonnes declaring full or partial force majeure.
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