A mine can take at least a decade to build. One rule of thumb is that a mineral deposit discovered during the exuberance of one commodity cycle is not converted into metal until the optimism of the next. There are several reasons for this. Onerous permitting standards are one; capital funding and technical challenges are others. It’s partly why cycles exist. The 17 years spent developing Wesizwe Platinum’s Bakubung mine in North West does not seem excessive in mining terms. Brought to the market in 2008, Bakubung — appropriately situated on the doorstep of the gambling hot spot Sun City — was forecast to begin ... (full story)