Jade Davenport

https://staging1.creamermedia.com/

Jade Davenport

DAVENPORT, MA (UCT), is a freelance journalist and historian – jade@engineeringnews.co.za

Settlement likely by year-end as parties in silicosis case pursue out-of-court option

5th May 2017 Mining companies facing a class action suit from mineworkers who developed silicosis on South Africa’s gold mines are expected to reach an out-of-court settlement before the close of the year. The class action, which was lodged in May 2016, comprises, according to attorney Richard Spoor, an... →

Settlement likely by year-end as parties in silicosis case pursue out-of-court option

5th May 2017 Mining companies facing a class action suit from mineworkers who developed silicosis on South Africa's gold mines, are anticipated to reach an out of court settlement before the close of the year. The class action, which was lodged in May 2016, comprises, according to attorney Richard Spoor, an... →

‘Decolonising’ South Africa’s mining history

14th April 2017 If there is one thing South African mining historians, myself included, have been guilty of, it is the tendency to focus on, and perpetuate, the 'colonial-esque' history of the industry. The common history begins in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time when white colonialists were... →

Rand Airport – Joburg’s first hub of civil aviation

31st March 2017 Since it was established in 1886, the city of Johannesburg has been at the forefront of much of the economic, industrial and infrastructure development in South Africa and the broader African continent. However, there is one notable exception to that general historical and ongoing trend, and... →

Cradle of South African aviation

10th March 2017 The birth of South Africa's aviation industry cannot be pinpointed to one location or date or to a single individual. While East London may boast the status of hosting the first flight in South Africa, the first aerodrome, along with the first flying school, was, in fact, established in... →

The first powered flight in South Africa

17th February 2017 The field of aviation achieved a new milestone last week with the safe passage of the world's longest commercial flight. That Qatar Airways plane travelled a distance of 14 535 km between the Qatari capital of Doha, and Auckland, New Zealand, in one continuous stretch – a journey that covered... →

Koeberg contract and SA’s covert nuclear arms programme

3rd February 2017 One of the most fascinating aspects of the construction of South Africa’s first nuclear energy project, the 1 800 MW Koeberg power station, in the Western Cape – and an aspect that will always differentiate it from any future nuclear build programme in the country – was that it was undertaken at... →

The nuclear contract that rocked the Dutch

27th January 2017 In the closing weeks of 2016 State-owned power utility Eskom announced that it would be moving ahead with the decision to invite bids to build six nuclear reactors, which are projected to add 9 600 MW of capacity to the national grid in the coming decades. While Eskom’s insistence on pursuing a... →

A brief history of SA’s nuclear energy sector

9th December 2016 State-owned power utility Eskom’s recent announcement that it intends to move ahead with a controversial initiative to request proposals for new nuclear generation capacity has sparked an intensive national debate on not only the need and viability of such a project but also its ethics. Politics... →

Cape Town harbour’s Alfred Basin

25th November 2016 Given that Cape Town was the most important port on the sea route between Europe and the East, for the first half century that the British administered this strategic maritime jewel, it is surprising that little effort was made to develop any infrastructure that could transform Table Bay into a... →

South Africa's first official civil engineer

18th November 2016 Following Britain’s annexation of the Cape at the turn of the nineteenth century, a number of measures were implemented, including the introduction of a new currency and the removal of all restraints on the trading of goods, which had the effect of stimulating trade and the economic life of the... →

The battle to tame Table Bay – Part 2

28th October 2016 Being strategically located halfway between Europe and the lucrative spice route of the East, the Cape of Good Hope was certainly a jewel in the crown of any maritime trading empire. This was especially the case in the era prior to the opening IN 1869 of the Suez Canal, an engineering marvel that... →

Pioneering efforts to tame Table Bay

14th October 2016 The Port of Cape Town may not be the largest, busiest or even oldest anchorage in Africa, but it certainly is the most historically famous and strategic of them all. Yet the irony is that Table Bay, the marine basin in which the harbour is located, was, in its natural state, actually a poor... →

The life and times of Anton Rupert

30th September 2016 October 4 marks the centenary of the birth of Anton Edward Rupert, one of South Africa’s most successful business magnates, whose entrepreneurial interest and influence not only extended across almost every sector of our economy and abroad in the latter half of the last century but is also still... →

Major milestone for Castle of Good Hope

16th September 2016 South Africa’s built environment, at least that dating from the colonial era, is celebrating a noteworthy milestone this year as it marks the 350th anniversary of the start of construction of the iconic Castle of Good Hope, considered South Africa’s oldest surviving building. It has already been... →

The foundations of South Africa’s forestry industry

2nd September 2016 The vital contribution trees make towards sustaining our habitable environment is a fact acknowledged the world over, with many countries having a dedicated 'arbor day’ On their national calendars. South Africa is one of the most enthusiastic proponents of this fact, dedicating not just a day,... →

Political risk, poor infrastructure and lack of geodata stymying African exploration

19th August 2016 It is an age old adage that, when the mining industry enters a slump, exploration budgets, particularly those designated for greenfield activities, are the first to be curtailed. This has certainly been reiterated over the last few years as the drastic slump in commodity prices and, consequently,... →

Political risk, poor infrastructure and lack of geodata stymying African exploration

19th August 2016 It is an age old adage that when the mining industry enters a slump exploration budgets, particularly those designated for greenfield activities, are the first to be curtailed. This has certainly been reiterated over the last few years as the drastic slump in commodity prices and, consequently,... →

Brief history of 15th ICG, the first to be hosted in Africa

19th August 2016 The City of Cape Town is set to host the thirty-fifth International Geological Congress, the most prestigious of geoscientific conferences held every four years, between August 27 and September 4. While it is certainly an exciting occasion for South Africa, it is interesting to note that the... →

The original fort of the Cape of Good Hope

12th August 2016 If one considers the fact that there are still intact man-made structures dating from 3700 BCE elsewhere in the world, the legacy of South Africa’s built environment is, by comparison, in its infantile stage. In fact, the country’s oldest surviving built structure, the Castle of Good Hope, in... →

Louis Thibault, SA’s first professional architect

5th August 2016 In the early years of colonial settlement in South Africa, there was very little need for professional skills in the built environment. Such was the small and relatively primitive nature of the few urban centres that had sprung up around the Cape that all civil and building works were fashioned... →

South Africa’s first locomotives

22nd July 2016 The South Africa of the late 1850s was an economic and industrial backwater with limited growth prospects, especially when compared with other colonial outposts. Diamonds and gold, which were to drive the country’s industrial revolution, were still a long way from being discovered and, thus, the... →

SA’s first public rail infrastructure

8th July 2016 It has been established that South Africa’s first rail-esque infrastructure was a 1.6N km oxen-operated wooden line, which was laid along Durban’s Bluff in 1856 to facilitate the conveyance of quarried sandstone for the construction of the harbour’s North Pier. However, the country did not have... →

South Africa’s first, albeit primitive, rail infrastructure

24th June 2016 John Milne, the man regarded as Durban’s first civil engineer, is most famous for his role as Port Natal’s (today the Port of Durban's) first harbour engineer and his pioneering efforts to overcome the infamous submarine sandbar that naturally blocks the entrance to the lagoon, which, for the... →

The battle of the sandbar at Durban harbour

10th June 2016 Durban’s first Harbour Engineer and the Battle of the Sandbar The greatest obstacle that has always challenged the successful use of the natural lagoon that is today Durban’s harbour is the containment of a massive sandbar, which, left unchecked, has the natural inclination to block the entrance... →

SA’s first lighthouse still in working order – 192 years on

27th May 2016 It is said that there are more than 3 000 shipwrecks off the coast of South Africa. This should hardly be surprising, given that our coastline, particularly the section around the Cape, which was originally christened Cabos das Tormentas (Cape of Storms) by Bartolomeu Dias, the first Portuguese... →

Pioneering road construction at the foot of Africa

13th May 2016 Driving along the highly developed network of highways, roads and mountain passes that connect the urban and rural settlements of South Africa, it is quite easy, in this modern day, to take for granted the relative ease with which one is able to get from point A to B. Yet, less than two centuries... →

Policy uncertainty, DMR leadership ‘challenges’, weak prices bode ill for mining sector in 2016

15th January 2016 Over the last few years, South Africa’s mining industry has staggered into the new year increasingly the worse for wear, having been ravaged by a myriad of challenges over the course of the previous year, including mineral policy uncertainty, labour-management disputes, waning investor... →

Policy uncertainty, DMR leadership ‘challenges’, weak prices bode ill for mining sector in 2016

15th January 2016 Over the last few years, South Africa’s mining industry has staggered into the new year increasingly the worse for wear having been ravaged by a myriad of challenges over the course of 2015 not least of which have included mineral-policy uncertainty, labour-management disputes, waning investor... →

DRDGold ploughs R600m into enviro management programme

11th December 2015 In the comparatively dry climate of the South African Highveld, wind-borne dust and sand have always been a significant irritation, especially to residents of the industrial and mining centres of Johannesburg. The main sources of the dust and sand, at least from an historical perspective, have... →

Mining-school enrolment still high despite industry’s contraction

9th October 2015 The South African mining industry has, since the advent of the industrial economy, always been the main employment mecca. The industry has not only provided jobs for millions of workers, but has also offered some of the best careers in the country’s professional hierarchy. →

Mining-school enrolment still high despite industry’s contraction

9th October 2015 The South African mining industry has, since the advent of the industrial economy, always been the main employment mecca. Not only has the industry provided jobs for millions of workers, it has also offered some of the best careers within the country’s professional hierarchy. →

As beneficiation debate rages, experts insist focus must be on niche sectors, upstream manufacturing

3rd April 2015 The contentious debate surrounding South Africa’s beneficiation strategy and how best it should be undertaken has been placed under the glare of the spotlight again and has served to intensify tensions between government and the mining industry over continuing mineral policy uncertainty. The... →

Photo by Duane Daws
INCENTIVISED OR MANDATED? While South Africa is largely uncompetitive in the global manufacturing context, beneficiation opportunities do exist, provided provided such beneficiation is incentivised as opposed to mandated

As beneficiation debate rages, experts insist focus must be on niche sectors, upstream manufacturing

2nd April 2015 The contentious debate surrounding South Africa’s beneficiation strategy and how best it should be undertaken has been placed under the glare of the spotlight again and has served to intensify tensions between government and the mining industry over continuing mineral policy uncertainty. The... →

Australian company starts trial reef residue mining in Pilgrim’s Rest

6th February 2015 Junior gold miner Stonewall Mining, a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX-listed Stonewall Resources, has started bulk trial mining at its historic Beta mine, in Pilgrim’s Rest, Mpumulanaga. This forms part of an ambitious premined residue (PMR) project, which aims to extract and process between... →

Mining sector poised for a bumpy 2015 as legislative uncertainty, other challenges linger

16th January 2015 South Africa’s long-embattled mining sector has slumped into the new year a little worse for wear, having been ravaged by an array of challenges during 2014, not least of which were the longest industrial action on record, a prolonged period of legislative uncertainty and downward spiralling... →

Mining sector poised for a bumpy 2015 as legislative uncertainty, other challenges linger

16th January 2015 The Chamber of Mines (CoM) is hopeful that labour stability will be achieved this year, as progress is being made in terms of stakeholder engagement, CoM president Mike Teke tells Mining Weekly. He says that the industry is moving forward in terms of engaging and creating an environment in which... →

Waning investor confidence, weak commodity prices among factors limiting growth of African mining sector

12th December 2014 Along with the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa remains the most underexplored and highly prospective mineralised region on earth. However, despite its ‘open for business’ approach and myriad investment opportunities – in terms of greenfield and brownfield projects across the commodity spectrum –... →

Waning investor confidence, weak commodity prices among factors limiting growth of African mining sector

12th December 2014 Along with the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa remains the most underexplored and highly prospective mineralised region on earth. However, despite its ‘open-for-business’ approach and myriad investment opportunities – in terms of green- and brownfield projects across the commodity spectrum – Africa’s... →

Low kimberlite discovery rate seen sparking diamond production crisis by turn of decade

31st October 2014 The stability of the diamond sector has always been a slave to the fine balance between supply and demand. Over the last century, the industry has had to contend with various crises of oversupply, largely spurred by conflict, global economic instability and the vagaries of consumer demand. As a... →

Low kimberlite discovery rate seen sparking diamond production crisis by turn of decade

31st October 2014 The stability of the diamond sector has always been a slave to the fine balance between supply and demand. Over the last century, however, the industry has dealt with various crises of oversupply, largely spurred by conflict, global economic instability and the vagaries of consumer demand. As a... →

PETRA DIAMONDS’ KX36 PROJECT, BOTSWANA Since 2000, only $7-billion has been spent on diamond exploration worldwide

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