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Help: The two mining stalwarts also aim to help previously disadvantaged communities
By Isaac Moledi
Two South African mining aficionados have joined forces to create Tlou Commodities, a R5 billion joint venture outfit to engage and grow the local mining sector during what is certainly believed to be a volatile time.
Tlou Commodities is the brainchild of mining stalwarts, Lucky Kgatle and Quinton van der Burgh who believe that their mining outfit places great emphasis on the principle of environmental sustainability with the aim to remain consistent in stabilizing and restoring all disturbed mining ares to ensure the beneficial use of these mined areas for generations to come.
Both say Tlou Commodities aims also to advance the previously disadvantaged communities.Kgatle, who pride himself with a BSc degree in Engeneering and an MBA, has 20 years’ proven experience under his belt, having managed large projects, the latest of which is Sasol Mining’s ambitious business transformation programme. He has recently ended his tenure as senior vice president of Sasol Mining, a successful coal mining company that controls six mines that collectively produce close to 40 million tons of thermal coal per annum as feedstock supply to JSE-listed petrochemicals company, Sasol Limited, and to the export market.
Throughout his career, Kgatle says he has been driven by a passion for innovation and business improvement and this has made him to succeed in building strong, sustainable partnerships with key players in the mining industry.
Kgatle can analyse and approach complex challenges from numerous avenues and offer solutions specific to each relevant business sector in a manner only possible for someone with his experience. He is confident in walking this road with van der Burgh, the man at the helm of Q Global Commodities (Pty) Ltd (“QGC”) who he says has become, through his plethora of initiatives and ventures, a mining magnate in his own right, able to muster immense resources based on his achievements in the industry.
Van der Burgh says during the past 17 years in which he has operated in the mining sector, his expertise has extended and compounded to contain vast insight into even the minutiae of the mining process in addition to the geological and legal aspects that come along with it. Through his portfolio of subsidiaries, he has successfully embarked on over forty projects including the fulfilment of numerous mining rights and has overseen the movement of over eighty million tons of coal through his numerous links in the supply chain, from extraction to the delivery at sidings.
In 2020, van der Burgh rebranded and consolidated all his mining operations and related services under the banner of QGC which has quickly established itself as one of Africa’s largest privately-owned mining portfolios, boasting selfsustaining subsidiaries in logistics, beneficiation and plant-hire. In the past financial year, QGC delivered more than seven million tons of various grades of coal to the international and domestic markets. With his partnership with Kgatle, van der Burgh says they aim to expand the South African mining industry focused on historically disadvantaged aspirants in the mining sector. He says he will strive to bring further substance to the concept of Black Economic Empowerment. “With access to market-leading resources, Tlou Commodities’ projects are designed not only with mining in mind, but also with the intention and ability to market and to sell our products, both domestically and internationally.”
In launching this venture, van der Burgh says the company has already secured access to a private equity fund to the value of R5 billion and QGC is looking to have a positive influence on the effects that the Covid-19 has had on the country.
“I revel in philanthropy and the work undertaken through my charity organisation, The Quinton van der Burgh Foundation. Lucky and I look forward to steering the philanthropic efforts of the organisations to benefit communities around our assets, surpassing present industry norms.”
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