She built a business from scratch, and now Shirley Hayes is sitting on a copper bonanza in a downtrodden patch of South Africa. After being laid off from her job as a quarry manager in South Africa, Shirley Hayes struck a deal with the owner of the nearby Blesberg mine: She would rehabilitate the abandoned site for free, and he would buy back whatever minerals she was able to extract. With only a temperamental, rented front-end loader and 50 liters (13 gallons) of borrowed diesel to her name, she and her team of eight workers started sifting through the trash heaps in 118-degree heat. “At the end of the first day, we had enough feldspar to buy another 50 liters of diesel,” says Hayes, who is now 51. “And so on.” Fast-forward 20 years and Hayes’ company, SHiP Copper, is finalizing exploration on an 89,000-acre concession she was granted in 2009. Within two years, she plans to begin production on the first of 10 mines, which SHiP will operate using an innovative cluster mining model, bringing all ore to a central processing plant to reduce costs. The mines — which could generate up to $30 million in annual profits for around 70 years — will breathe new life into a region where centuries of mixed fortunes have been tied to copper. |