Former Sibanye-Stillwater’s CEO Neal Froneman is to lend his expertise to international multidisciplinary engineering firm DRA Global as senior special adviser, with his mining insights likely to come in handy for a company with a big exposure to the industry.
The company’s operations are predominantly focused on the mining, minerals and metals industry, across a wide range of commodities.
Froneman, who retired from Sibanye at the end of September, took up his role at DRA at the beginning of October, as the respected mining executive is not looking to ride into the sunset yet after a highly successful tenure at Sibanye, which was marked by aggressive acquisitive growth.
DRA, which has operations spanning Africa and the Middle East, North and South America and Asia-Pacific, said in the role, Froneman would “engage with existing and prospective clients, identify and develop new business opportunities”.
The company, which has an office in SA, said Froneman would provide strategic input as DRA expands its presence across Africa, the Americas, Australia and other key markets.
“Neal’s appointment represents an important step in strengthening DRA’s strategic leadership and marks a significant milestone in our evolution as a global engineering and project delivery business,” DRA CEO James Smith said.
DRA owns Minopex, one of Africa’s leading processing plant contract operator employing more than 2,000 staff across 16 sites, which collectively treat on average 6.7-million tonnes of ore per month.
Another subsidiary of DRA is Senet, an Africa-focused engineering, procurement, construction management, minerals processing and project delivery firm, headquartered in Johannesburg.
To date, Senet has completed in excess of 200 projects and facilities, as well as over 300 studies, most of which are in Africa, where the scope of work has included a variety of mineral/metallurgical process plants, crushing and screening plants and bulk materials handling facilities for mining and industrial applications, according to the company’s website.
Froneman said he was looking to add value to DRA.
“I am delighted to join DRA at such an exciting point in its journey. DRA has an exceptional technical foundation and an entrepreneurial spirit that align strongly with my own approach. I look forward to working with the team to develop new opportunities and to contribute to the next phase of DRA’s global growth.”
During his tenure, Froneman led the diversification of Sibanye, which gave it exposure to assets on five continents.
In 2016 Sibanye bought Aquarius Platinum in SA, including the Mimosa joint venture with Impala Platinum in Zimbabwe.
That was followed by the acquisition of the Rustenburg operations from Anglo American Platinum.
In May 2017, Froneman splashed out $2.2bn on US-based Stillwater Mining Company — the largest transaction globally in the platinum group metals (PGM) sector in more than a decade.
Sibanye in 2018 invested in the circular economy through an initial 38.05% shareholding in DRDGold, and later increased that to 50.1%.
The spending spree continued in 2019 when the company snapped up Lonmin, which comprised the Marikana PGM mining operations and associated processing and base metal and precious metal refining operations.
One of his few losses was the failure to capture Zambia’s Mopani Copper Mines — losing out to cash-rich Abu Dhabi’s International Resources Holding.
Under Froneman, Sibanye-Stillwater also pivoted to lithium via its project in Finland that aims to start sustainable production of battery-grade lithium hydroxide, using its own ore.
The operations are being touted to play an important role in helping Europe reduce its reliance on China for the key battery ingredient for electric vehicles.
The EU requires all new cars sold after 2035 to have zero-carbon emissions. Besides being used in the batteries of electric vehicles, lithium batteries also power laptops and mobile phones, and are used in the glass and ceramics industry.
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