The period between 2001 and 2008 saw the longest commodities boom in recent history. Resource-rich countries across the world developed more interest in the profits, control and ownership of their natural resources. South Africa, which did not benefit much from the boom in commodity prices, was nonetheless affected by the emergent resource nationalism trend, and it became the focus of the governing party’s 2010 National General Council, which ultimately resulted in the constitution of a committee to review the country’s policy and legislative framework regarding ‘natural wealth beneath the soil’. Although the resurgence of resource nationalism is a recent phenomenon, the idea of state intervention in the economy, and the extractive sector in particular, is not new.