Creamer Media’s Real Economy Year Book has been divided into separate reports under the banner Real Economy Insight, and investigates key developments in the automotive, construction, electricity, petrochemicals, oil and gas, road, rail and ports, steel, water, manufacturing, pumps, coal, gold, iron-ore and platinum sectors. This five-page brief is a synopsis of key developments in the gold sector over the past 12 months. It provides an overview of gold’s performance in the year to date and whether gold will continue to weather the ups and downs of the market.

Creamer Media’s Real Economy Year Book has been divided into separate reports under the banner Midyear Briefs, and investigates key developments in the automotive, construction, electricity, petrochemicals, oil and gas, road, rail and ports, steel, manufacturing, water, coal, gold, iron-ore and platinum sectors. This four-page brief is a synopsis of key developments in the iron-ore sector over the past 12 months. It provides an overview of the global and South African iron-ore markets and how iron-ore is mobilising into the green steel supply chain space.

Creamer Media’s Real Economy Year Book has been divided into separate reports under the banner Midyear Briefs, and investigates key developments in the automotive, construction, electricity, petrochemicals, oil and gas, road, rail and ports, steel, manufacturing, water, coal, gold, iron-ore and platinum sectors. This five-page brief is a synopsis of key developments in the platinum sector over the past 12 months. It looks at the major platinum producers in South Africa, and the role that platinum will play in unlocking the green hydrogen economy.

Creamer Media’s Real Economy Year Book has been divided into separate reports under the banner Midyear Briefs, and investigates key developments in the automotive, construction, electricity, petrochemicals, oil and gas, road, rail and ports, steel, manufacturing, water, coal, gold, iron-ore and platinum sectors. This five-page brief is a synopsis of key developments in the coal sector over the past 12 months. It provides an overview of the global coal market, South African coal producers, domestic coal demand and coal exports. It also examines coal companies’ broader energy ambitions and the goal of a cleaner energy future and just energy transition.

Creamer Media’s Real Economy Year Book has been divided into separate reports under the banner Midyear Briefs, and investigates key developments in the automotive, construction, electricity, petrochemicals, oil and gas, road, rail and ports, steel, manufacturing, water, pumps, coal, gold, iron-ore and platinum sectors. This five-page brief is a synopsis of key developments in the pumps sector over the past 12 months. The brief considers the growth drivers in the pumps sector, the adoption of the Industrial Internet of Things, mergers and acquisitions in the sector, as well as how supply chain disruptions affect the sector.

Countless industries globally depend on the supply of mined mineral resources, making the mining sector crucial to the world’s economy. The reliance of high-tech industries on critical metals, such as platinum-group metals, lithium, cobalt and rare earths, which are used in a range of industrial applications, such as electronics, clean energy, aerospace, automotive and defence, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Gold, mined for thousands of years, is still considered a store of value, while iron-ore, coal, potash and copper remain some of the most exploited commodities in terms of volume. However, the minerals sector is no exception to the effects of Covid-19, albeit in varying degrees. Open access publisher MDPI contends that the pandemic has had the biggest effect on projects implementing feasibility studies and on projects for the development of new mines. This also holds true for the extraction of residual resources in mines before closure. Creamer Media’s ‘Global Mining Projects in Progress 2022’ report covers more than 80 mining projects across Africa, Australia, East Asia, South-East Asia, Europe and the Americas, all offering very compelling mining propositions, with several excellent prospects in the pipeline.

The world and South Africa seem to be lurching from one crisis to the next. This time last year, governments and businesses globally and locally were preoccupied with finding ways of recovering from the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the associated lockdowns, which had seriously disrupted production, supply chains and economic activity. While the virus remains a threat and more lockdowns have been implemented in China this year, countries are finding ways of living with the virus, the potency of which has also, thankfully, weakened as new variants have emerged and communities gained natural and vaccine-induced resilience. It is urgent, however, that further momentum is built – and fast – so that these green shoots do not get trampled on before bearing fruit. Creamer Media considers these events and the ramifications thereof in its Real Economy Yearbook 2022, in the hope that South Africa's stalled public infrastructure roll-out will provide visible evidence of progress in the months to come but also lay the foundation for future growth and job creation.

South Africa has made investment, especially investment in infrastructure, a key priority as it desperately seeks to reignite growth and spur employment creation through the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan. It is one thing prioritising investment, but quite another making it happen, particularly given global and domestic headwinds. Globally, the ongoing pandemic, rising inflation, an intensifying climate crisis and a growing number of conflicts, epitomised by, but definitely not limited to, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are all undermining the allocation of capital to developing economies. Domestically, the microeconomic reforms that are viewed as so crucial to unblocking investment in energy, logistics and digital infrastructure are either progressing too slowly or experiencing growing pains. On all these fronts, South Africa is currently lacking, which is why partnerships are now so crucial between government and business. To lay the foundations for far higher levels of economic growth, government needs to enter into a true collaboration with the private sector and civil society to realise infrastructure delivery. In such an environment, government should use its policy muscle to leverage those fixed investment areas, such as green energy, which will have the biggest economic-, employment- and climate-resiliency multipliers, while ensuring that the guardrails are in place to prevent corruption and abuse of dominance. It is a partnership that can begin with pockets of excellence, such as unlocking new distributed power generation by miners, before being progressively expanded to other crucial areas, including water, sanitation, roads, bridges, rail, housing, and broadband infrastructure. It is time to beat the backlog together.

The World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) states that green hydrogen has the potential to play a significant role in decarbonising the global economy and that platinum has a significant role to play in that economy. According to the WPIC, capacity targets for the generation of green hydrogen in the European Union and China will cumulatively require between 300 000 oz and 600 000 oz of additional platinum by 2030. The hydrogen fuel cell and green technology sectors are expected to significantly drive platinum demand, and with South Africa holding about 91% of the world’s platinum group metals (PGMs) reserves, the country stands to benefit from the rapidly growing global hydrogen economy. South Africa, with its world-leading solar and wind resources, and vast PGMs resources used in the electrolysers needed to produce green hydrogen, has the competitive advantage to produce and export green hydrogen. It must, however, move swiftly to exploit this advantage, which could be worth $2.50-trillion by 2050. Creamer Media’s ‘Platinum 2021/22: A market set for a deficit rather than a surplus’ report provides an overview of the platinum market in this context. The global focus of the report is on supply and demand, as well as the creation of a green economy revolving around green hydrogen, while the focus in South Africa shifts to platinum production, the country's role in green hydrogen production, the regulatory environment, electricity and labour relations challenges, as well as the main participants in the sector.

As the world increasingly turns towards reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and decarbonisation, the use of electric vehicles and stationary energy storage systems is expected to increase. The International Energy Agency estimates that nearly 10 000 GWh/y of batteries and other energy storage technologies will be required by 2040. As demand for batteries increases, so will demand for the metals and minerals that are needed to manufacture them; and with little or no inventory in the system and demand set to more than triple by 2025, buyers are seizing all they can. Meanwhile, battery metals producers are rushing to expand their operations and are evaluating new opportunities to keep pace with the surging demand for lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, graphite, manganese, vanadium and some rare-earth metals. Creamer Media’s ‘Battery Metals 2021/22: Demand for battery metals surging’ report provides an overview of the battery metals market in this context. Globally, the focus of the report is on supply and demand and the creation of a sustainable battery value chain, while in Africa, the report’s focus shifts to some of the key mining projects under way.