Africa

Construction of one of the world's largest uranium mines was officially inaugurated on April 18 this year, with fireworks, foot-stomping, marimbas and a fountain that danced to classical music, when a ground breaking ceremony took place at the mine site in the desert near Swakopmund in Namibia.

SEAMIC traces its origins back to the late 1970s with the establishment of the Eastern and Southern African Mineral Resources Development Centre (ESAMRDC), supported by UNDP and various bilateral support programmes from the UK and Japan. Its headquarters were established in Dodoma in central Tanzania, and in those days its remit was principally to carry out regional geological surveying and to provide consulting services for programs of its founding member states, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Mozambique.

Rwanda may be one of Africa’s smallest nations, and one with an unenviable recent history to say the least, but since its now President Paul Kagame was elected in 2003 it has experienced a decade of relative peace and security. This has enabled Rwanda to take advantage of its strategic location within the African continent. ‘Landlocked’ can also mean ‘central’: Rwanda is situated at the heart of Africa, and therefore well placed to act as a hub for regional air traffic.

First listed on the AIM in 1997, with a market capitalisation of £10 million, Petra Diamonds has since grown into a leading independent diamond mining group and an important supplier of rough diamonds to the international market.

Mr Teke, who is non-executive director at Optimum Coal, replaces out-going president Mark Cutifani. Other appointments announced at the Chamber’s 123rd Annual General Meeting included Khanyisile Kweyama, executive director of Anglo American South Africa, being made first vice president and Graham Briggs, CEO of Harmony Gold, being made second vice president.

With its stable, multi-party parliamentary democracy and an economy buoyed by strong agricultural, tourism and mining sectors, Namibia has a lot going for it as a nation. This fact was reaffirmed this year when Bloomberg named Namibia the top emerging market economy in Africa and the 13th best in the world.

Sharing its borders with the Kalahari Desert and the South Atlantic Ocean, Namibia is one of the youngest countries in Africa and as such enjoys vast potential for future prosperity. Since gaining independence in March 1990, Namibia has successful transitioned into a multiparty democracy with an estimated annual GDP per capita of $5,828.

Founded in 1992 by sisters Caron and Elaine Harris, FATS (the initials stand for Forwarding African Transport Services) has been built up from nothing to become a R200 million services company and a major player in the South African freight forwarding industry.

Mining operations rely on their equipment, and there’s no doubt that each site has a lot of moving parts in its conveyors, trucks, shovels, milling and grinding trains, not to mention its associated drilling programmes. All of this has to be nursed and protected with the right oils and greases. As any operations manager knows, lubricants can be a big budget item and one that pays back in proportion to its contribution to things like frequency of maintenance, equipment life and the avoidance of running problems that involve stopping the machine.