South Africa aims to increase its share of global exploration expenditure to at least 3% in the next five years, an ambition which Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe touted as “laudable” during a recent keynote address to the platinum-group metals (PGMs) industry. He referenced data published by Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) that showed mining output rose by 0.8% on a year-on-year basis in February. StatsSA further reported that mining sector output had increased by 3.8% month-on-month in February, which marked a considerable improvement on the 8.4% month-on-month contraction observed in ... (full story)