What does South Africa produce and export?

The Bushveld Complex is a body of layered igneous rock that cooled about two billion years ago and left thin, remarkably continuous seams enriched in platinum-group metals. Nothing comparable is mined anywhere else, and the seams dip underground at a shallow angle, which means deep, narrow, labor-intensive shafts rather than open pits. South Africa produced 73% of the world's platinum in 2025 (USGS) and held 36% of world platinum export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI). Because the same reef carries palladium, rhodium and ruthenium in fixed proportions, producers cannot respond to the price of one metal without changing the output of the others.

Gold built the country and is now in long decline. The Witwatersrand basin, discovered in 1886, holds gold in ancient conglomerate beds that continue for kilometers downdip, and mines chasing them became the deepest in the world, some working nearly four kilometers below surface at rock temperatures that require refrigeration. Depth, cost and grade have cut output steadily, which is why South Africa no longer appears among the largest producers but still held 4.9% of world gold export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), some of it refined metal from elsewhere in Africa.

Bulk minerals face a different problem. High-grade hematite at Sishen in the Northern Cape travels 860 kilometers on a dedicated heavy-haul line to Saldanha Bay, and coal from Mpumalanga runs east to Richards Bay; both routes have carried well below their design capacity because of locomotive shortages, cable theft and maintenance backlogs. South Africa mined 2.6% of world iron ore in 2025 (USGS) and held 4.2% of world iron-ore export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), and it took 3.9% of world coal export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI). The same coal supplies most domestic electricity, and the rolling blackouts that began in 2008 have constrained smelting and processing across the mining industry. Agriculture is smaller but regionally important: white maize grown on the Free State and North West highveld feeds southern Africa, and the country held 2.0% of world corn export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI).