<P> South Africa has the second - largest reserves of uranium in the world . The Nuclear Fuels Corporation of South Africa (NUFCOR) started processing uranium as a by - product of gold mining in 1967 . Most of the uranium produced as a by - product of gold mining is concentrated in the golf fields of the Witwatersrand area . Uranium is more easily and readily available than gold in South Africa . </P> <P> There are a number of mining companies that process uranium from mines that they own . Anglo Gold Ashanti, Sibayane Gold Ltd, Harmony Gold Mining Co., First Uranium, and Peninsula Energy own or control most of the uranium - from - gold mining processing plants in South Africa . </P> <P> Though uranium production in South Africa showed a decrease from 711t in 2000 to 579t in 2010, in 2011 930t were produced with a forecast of 2,000 t by 2020 . In 2016, Tasman Pacific Minerals, owned by Peninsula Energy started plans to open the first uranium ore mine, Tasman RSA . </P> <P> Conditions on most South African mines are very similar to those elsewhere except for the gold mines where the low geothermal gradient, i.e. the rate at which the temperature goes up with depth, is often as low as 9 ° C per kilometre depth (compared with a world average of about 25 ° C / km), and this, combined with narrow and very continuous orebodies in hard and competent rocks makes it possible to mine to depths unattainable elsewhere in the world . </P>

Why the mining industry is so important to the south african economy