Reporter’s Notebook — A Finnish mining operation is a stark contrast to SA’s mines

During my visit this week to Sibanye-Stillwater’s Keliber lithium operation in Finland, I was passing through the changing room when I came across what for me was a jarring sight: a sauna.

In their typically reserved manner, Sibanye’s local employees explained to me that pretty much every Finnish workplace has a sauna.

“It’s why we are the happiest people in the world,” one told me – a true fact according to the annual survey on the issue. And that was just the tip of the iceberg on this chilly April day. Everything about a Finnish mining operation offers a striking contrast to the several that I have visited in SA over the years – a juxtaposition that reflects the geological, social and economic gulfs that exists between the two countries.

To wit, Sibanye’s Keliber lithium mine near the Finnish town of Kokkola started production in February. The mine, the concentrator and the refinery are completely automated and digitised – mechanisation is a quaint relic of a distant past – and the entire operation employs about 250 people including contractors, a number that will rise to 300.

At Sibanye’s Driefontein mine alone, there can be 6,000 employees underground on one shift. In total, Sibanye employs more than 70,000 people including contractors across its gold and platinum operations in SA.

Relative solitude

The Keliber mine currently has a staff of 63 – the other employees are at the concentrator, the refinery and the offices – and our site visit there was almost eerie for the relative solitude.

Ringed by a green coniferous forest beneath a blue dome of sky, there were a couple of trucks lumbering around moving rock from the mine, which is open pit. Our group of journalists, analysts and Sibanye staff from other operations I am sure outnumbered the employees working on the mine site that day.

A South African mine, conventional or mechanised, is always a buzzing hive of activity with people all over the show doing this, that and the other thing above and underground. The Keliber mine also only operates Monday to Friday.

This stems from the level of automation. At the refinery, the control room was ablaze with 31 screens monitored by six staff. There are 12 people in total working each shift at the refinery, which goes into operation later this year. And that’s it.

Again, the one South African refinery I have visited – Valterra Platinum’s in Rustenburg – was chock-a-block with people when I was there.

There was also a notable lack of security personal, which is a ubiquitous and very visible feature of all of the South African mines I have visited. Lithium does not lend itself to zama activity the way that gold does, but it was a very different experience to just drive down a dirt road through the woods onto a mine site without having to be cleared by security.

Of course, no informal settlement has emerged on the edge of the site with people desperate to find work at the mine. I must also say that I have never seen a sauna at a South African mine – that would probably be a hard sell in most mining boardrooms in Johannesburg.

Two very different societies

This is all ultimately a reflection of two very different societies. SA’s remains sadly defined by shocking levels of poverty and unemployment and glaring disparities of wealth and income. The Gini coefficient, the main measure on this front, consistently ranks SA as the most unequal nation in the world.

Finland has low levels of poverty, an unemployment rate of 10.7%, and is regarded as one of the most equal countries in the world, according to its ranking by the Gini coefficient. They are the happiest people in the world!

Many of SA’s ore bodies are ill suited geologically to automation on this scale. But advances in technology are taking place at a blistering and accelerating pace, and who knows what the future holds?

But SA as a society is also not an ideal candidate for this level of automation, given its pressing need for job creation to address its poverty levels and inequality.

As I write these words, the Finnish forest is flying past. I am on a high-speed train to Helsinki that is on time – a level of service that only Prasa can dream about.

Another observation: South Africans can carry their concerns with their baggage when they go abroad. On Monday, Sibanye had a capital markets day in Helsinki that was webcast.

Protectively, one member of staff from SA had asked the Finnish technicians at the venue to have a generator on standby in case of power failure. The Finnish technicians were as gobsmacked by this request as I was at the sight of a sauna at a mining operation. DM