Mining and Exploration

As copper increasingly becomes a much-wanted resource across global industry, exciting times are emerging from the Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana where Australian company, Sandfire, has officially opened the Motheo Copper Mine.
 
Over its initial ten-year life, Motheo is expected to deliver significant value to the people of Botswana through taxes and royalties, and long-term employment, training and development opportunities.
 

In 2020, the Tanzanian Government and Barrick Gold Corporation launched a joint venture – Twiga Minerals Corporation – intending to revitalize two gold mines at North Mara and Bulyanhulu and make the 50:50 enterprise a model for similar operations in other regions.

Through several years of political unrest, gold mining has proven to be an area that the West African country Burkina Faso can depend on. From less than 10 billion West African CFA Francs at the beginning of this century, revenues from oil and mineral extraction have grown to over 300 billion in the past two years. And among the country’s growing portfolio of world-class mines, the Essakane Gold Mine, Burkina Faso’s largest, stands alone.

In its five-year outlook for Cote d’Ivoire, the International Monetary Fund projects growth of over six percent in each of the years to the end of 2028. If this growth comes to pass - and there is no guarantee that it will - Cote d’Ivoire’s economy will have grown by over a third in a short period of time. One of the drivers for this growth is a government refocuses on the country’s extensive mines, the latest of which to come into operation is the Séguéla gold project.

It is ten years since Business Excellence first visited Ambatovy Joint Venture Project in Madagascar. At that time, the mine was still at the preparatory phase, albeit with serious ambition. With total funding for the project crossing the $5.5 billion threshold, it was, and remains to this day, the largest investment in Madagascar’s history, and has contributed nearly a quarter of the country’s tax revenues since it become operational.

Gold mining in Tanzania goes back to the end of the 19th century, when gold mines were discovered close to Lake Victoria. After several more finds over the course of the 20th century, a culture of gold mining took hold in the country. When the mines were privatized at the end of the 1980s, it opened the door to many of the world’s most highly-regarded mineral mining companies arrived in Tanzania.

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important issue in the mining sector across Africa, and Namibia is no exception. As a country with a rich history of mining and blessed with multiple extractive assets, it is important for mining operations to consider the long-term impact of their activities on the environment and local communities.