CRITICAL MINERALS AND METALS STRATEGY SOUTH AFRICA

The Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy for South Africa is a national roadmap designed to transition the country from a raw material supplier to a global hub for processed critical minerals and high-value end products. The strategy focuses on leveraging South Africa's vast reserves of platinum group metals, manganese, and vanadium to support the global energy transition, specifically in sectors like electric vehicles, green hydrogen, and renewable energy. It outlines six strategic pillars—geoscience mapping, value addition, R&D, infrastructure, financial instruments, and regulatory harmonisation—to drive industrialisation, job creation, and economic resilience while navigating complex geopolitical tensions and promoting regional integration within Africa.

• South Africa holds dominant global reserves of several critical minerals, including the largest known reserves of Platinum Group Metals (88%), Manganese (80%), and Chromite (72%), and the 13% of Gold.
• The country's mineral value chains are currently skewed toward the upstream sector, focusing on extraction and export with limited local beneficiation and manufacturing capacity.
• South Africa has experienced a significant decline in exploration investment, attracting only 0.92% of global exploration budgets in 2023, far below its target of 5%.
• The strategy identifies a tiered list of critical minerals: 'High-Criticality' minerals include Platinum, Manganese, Iron Ore, Coal, and Chrome Ore; 'Moderate to High' include Gold, Vanadium, Palladium, Rhodium, and Rare Earth Elements; and 'Moderate' include Copper, Cobalt, Lithium, Graphite, Nickel, Titanium, Phosphate, Fluorspar, Zirconium, Uranium, and Aluminium.
• The ferroalloys industry has suffered a decline in domestic smelting capacity due to high electricity costs, poor rail and port performance, and competition from China, with the global market share for ferrochrome dropping from 39% in 2009 to 26% in 2019.
• To move beyond raw ore exports, the strategy proposes establishing South Africa as a regional hub for battery manufacturing, including the production of precursor materials, cathodes, and vanadium redox flow batteries.
• The strategy emphasizes the 'Hydrogen Society Roadmap' to develop a hydrogen economy based on PGM beneficiation, including the creation of a mobility corridor from Mogalakwena in Limpopo to Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal.
• Infrastructure deficiencies, specifically energy shortages and constraints in rail and port systems for bulk exports, are identified as the primary risks to the mining industry.
• South Africa aims to integrate into a circular economy by investing in the recycling of minerals and the extraction of Rare Earth Elements from coal fly ash (CFA).
• The document highlights the geopolitical risk of China's dominance, noting that China controls over 70% of the global supply chain for various critical minerals, including REEs, lithium, cobalt, and graphite.

APA

Centre for Environmental Rights (n.d.). CRITICAL MINERALS AND METALS STRATEGY SOUTH AFRICA. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/DMPR-Critical-Minerals-Strategy-2025.pdf?x21779

Chicago

Centre for Environmental Rights. CRITICAL MINERALS AND METALS STRATEGY SOUTH AFRICA. n.d. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/DMPR-Critical-Minerals-Strategy-2025.pdf?x21779.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Centre for Environmental Rights |title=CRITICAL MINERALS AND METALS STRATEGY SOUTH AFRICA |url=https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/DMPR-Critical-Minerals-Strategy-2025.pdf?x21779 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centreforenvironmentalrightsndcritical, author = {{Centre for Environmental Rights}}, title = {{CRITICAL MINERALS AND METALS STRATEGY SOUTH AFRICA}}, institution = {Centre for Environmental Rights}, url = {https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/DMPR-Critical-Minerals-Strategy-2025.pdf?x21779}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }