Harmony’s starting to show the world that gold mining in South Africa is good business

This audio is brought to you by Astec Industries, a Global Leader in manufacturing equipment for infrastructure, including asphalt production, construction, and material processing, driving innovation and sustainability. Harmony Gold Mining Company, South Africa's biggest gold mining company, is proving itself to be a great South African asset and it's booming at the moment, not only because the gold price is so high, but also because this Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company has structured itself so well to mine at a depth greater than any other gold mining company on planet earth. Specifically, South Africa saw a phenomenal performance from the gold mine with the world's deepest shaft - Mponeng - which delivered a wonderfully high grade of 11.27 g/t. Mponeng's shaft is 3 891 m below datum and more than 2 000 m below sea level and the sequential grid mining method used helps to ensure that mining does not trigger unnecessary seismicity. Mponeng, which began extracting gold from the Ventersdorp Contact Reef orebody in 1986, is now dishing up a flood of free cash flow, not thanks to Mother Nature alone, but also the result of the human ingenuity that is being applied by Harmony Gold, which is now also moving swiftly into copper in Australia, backed by its success in South Africa. But for now, it is predominantly South Africa's two big, high-grade, deep-level Mponeng and Moab Khotsong gold mines - which are receiving new double-decade life horizons from strong capital investment under way - that are uplifting this company, amid good support from the very promising Mine Waste Solutions and the other surface projects, optimised assets that have been generating consistent and predictable production, as well as Hidden Valley in Papua New Guinea, where Harmony Gold also has high hopes for Wafi-Golpu, a 50:50 copper/gold joint venture between subsidiaries of Harmony and Newmont. "But it's the gold business in South Africa, where it all began, that's starting to show the world that gold mining in South Africa is a good business," Harmony Gold CEO Beyers Nel, 48, pointed out in an interview with Mining Weekly this week following the reporting of record high free cash flow of R11-billion-plus and a record final dividend of R2.4-billion. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.) The first job of mining engineer and Polokwane-born Nel was as a general underground worker at the Vaal Reefs gold mine as part of a mining graduate programme. This was followed by a linear progression of roles within the gold mining industry, which culminated in his appointment as Harmony's group CEO from January 1 this year. Nel sees the leading of Harmony's 46 000 "valuable people" as his biggest opportunity. Green electrons are expected to flow soon at Harmony Gold's Moab as part of a 100 MW project and there is optimism that the Target 1 gold mine will be a contributing mine in 2026 financial year. In financial year 2025, capital expenditure (capex) rose 32% to R10 998-million driven mainly by the extension projects at Mponeng, the 100 MW renewable-energy project at Moab Khotsong and Mine Waste Solutions' Kareerand tailings storage facility extension, and capex is expected to increase in financial year 2026 to advance growth and sustain mature assets. Mining Weekly: How widespread is the use of sequential grid mining by Harmony? Nel: The sequential grid mining method is a method we use at some of our mines, and predominantly in the West Wits area, where Mponeng and our Kusasalethu mines use this mining method, which structures the mining fronts in a V-formation. What it does is it keeps the stresses that trigger seismicity above the normal levels of seismicity ahead of you. It's a structured, rigid and safe way of extracting ore from these deep mines, and we've seen the preventative controls of seismic management and safety management helping us to mine Mponeng and Kusasalethu, not only successfully but also safely, which is priority number one for ...