Mining and Exploration

Charles Siwawa, CEO of the Botswana Chamber of Mines, discusses the positive changes he has witnessed within the mining industry, what motivates him and what the legacy he hopes to leave behind.

Collahuasi, or to give it its full name Compañía Minera Dona Inés de Collahuasi SCM, is a joint venture owned by two equal mining majors, AngloAmerican and Xstrata, with 44 percent of the shares apiece. The remaining equity is in the hands of a group of Japanese interests led by Mitsui & Co Ltd, one of Japan’s largest trading companies and including Nippon Mining & Metals and Mitsui Mining & Smelting.

The package of sensors, alarms and software, dubbed Driver Safety Solution (DDS), aims to prevent accidents caused by fatigue by detecting when a truck driver is about to fall asleep. The technology has already been put to the test in trails by BHP Billiton and Newmont Mining.

Developed by Australian firm, Seeing Machines, DDS will cost up to $20,000 to install on each vehicle, although a discount applies if it is bought in bulk.

It has happened. Vanessa Guthrie told us she was not anxious about the twice delayed approval by Australia's Federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Tony Burke to go ahead with Toro Energy's A$269 million Wiluna uranium mine, but the uncertainty must have cast a bit of a cloud over the Easter break.

Perseus Mining is very much a team effort: an overnight success that was 25 years in the making, as one of its founders Mark Calderwood has described it. Calderwood, the current chairman Reg Gillard and exec director Colin Carson have been taking an active interest in the under-explored mineral deposits of West Africa for that long, but it was not until 2004 that, having secured a couple of gold bearing deposits in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and the Kyrgyz Republic that they formed a company and floated it on the ASX.

Analysts talk of Vietnam becoming the fastest growing Asian economy, reaching a ten percent growth rate within the next twelve years with one of the main drivers being its natural resources. The country has significant known deposits of many bulk and niche minerals, including bauxite, rare earths, tungsten, titanium, phosphate, coal and iron ore but with the exception of its coal most current mining operations are on a small scale.

Namibia Diamond Trading Company (NDTC) was established in 2007, to sort, value and sell diamonds produced by Namdeb (the joint venture responsible for mining activities in Namibia) and more specifically to establish a viable downstream diamond cutting, polishing and jewellery design industry in Namibia.

Since 2005, Tridum e-Security has been providing high quality services and solutions to all manner of industry fields including the finance, enterprise, telecommunications, transportation, logistics, mining and government sectors.

Today the company is recognised for offering information and communication systems security and professional network infrastructure services, as well as being an expert provider of planning, implementation and maintenance solutions that are linked to banking software and hardware.

Founded as a family owned mining company in Spain in 1952, OSSA is today active across the globe and recognised as being a leading figure in the underground construction sector specialising in three core business segments, those being construction, energy and mining.