Minister of mineral and petroleum resources Gwede Mantashe told parliament on Wednesday that his department was focused on leveraging the strategic strengths of the local and continental resources sector to weather the world’s current geopolitical and trade tensions.
Mantashe was tabling his 2025 budget vote, in which he told MPs that significant progress has been made in the rationalisation of the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF), iGas, and PetroSA to establish the South African National Petroleum Company (SANPC).
“The SANPC successfully negotiated to carry 90% shareholding of the oil Block B2, while Nilepet — South Sudan's national oil company — holds 10%, thereby promising significant future revenue for SANPC and the South African government. Equally, PetroSA's continued commercial presence in Ghana highlights our strategic engagement in the continent's energy sector.”
He said that while the SANPC bill is before parliament, the company has been registered in terms of the Companies Act and has started operating as a subsidiary of the Central Energy Fund .
“The African continent presents significant opportunities for revenue generation and economic diplomacy. A prime example of such an opportunity is the Nile Orange Energy Project in South Sudan, which boasts the third-largest oil resource base in Sub-Saharan Africa, with 3.5-billion barrels of oil, following Nigeria and Angola.”
He said that through government-to-government engagement, an opportunity had emerged for the acquisition of exploration blocks in South Sudan. As a result, the SFF and the South Sudan ministry of petroleum negotiated the terms of an exploration and production sharing agreement.
He also announced the addition of operational funding to entities including but not limited to R134.7m for the rehabilitation of derelict mines by Mintek, R22.4m for the Mine Rehabilitation Research Project by the Council for Geoscience, R32.3m to the CGS for the Mine Water Ingress Project and R46.1m to the Petroleum Agency South Africa for its shale gas project.
Mantashe said since his tabling of the budget vote in 2024, the department has finalised and published the draft Mineral Resources Development Bill, reviewed the Petroleum Products Act, and driven the enactment of the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Act in October.
“The Mine Health and Safety Amendment Bill has been tabled in parliament. Your urgent consideration and adoption of the bill will not only support the strides made by the industry in improving the health and safety at our mines but will also ensure stability and empower the industry with the necessary practices to attain the goal of zero harm.”
Mantashe said his budget vote tabling comes amid a challenging landscape, escalating trade tensions and rapidly evolving geopolitical relationships.
“The political and economic consequences of these tensions and conflicts continue to have a negative impact on the world economy, with the developing nations, such as ours, being the hardest hit.”
He said other than gold, prices of minerals exported by South Africa remained depressed, while coal, platinum group metals, manganese and chrome have been excluded from the tariffs imposed by the US.
“The inclusion of diamonds and iron ore in the 30% reciprocal tariffs on imports from South Africa threatens our export earnings and has the potential to damage global economic growth. Despite the challenging global environment, mining gross value added rebounded by 0.3% in 2024, from a 0.5% decline in 2023.”
He said 2024 mining contributed R451bn to GDP, sustaining the 6% total contribution to the GDP, while the mining export earnings totalled R674bn, comprises R586.4bn from primary minerals and R87.5bn from processed minerals, representing a decrease of 0.6% from R678bn in 2023.
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