Africa

The diamond industry has been on something of a rollercoaster ride since the global financial crisis of 2008, with prices plummeting in 2008 and 2009, before rebounding to reach historically high levels in 2010 and 2011. This pattern of extremes was replicated in 2012, with retail sales of diamonds growing 1.8 percent from 2011 to $72.1 billion at the same time that overall prices for rough and polished diamonds declined by 14 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Since the early 1990s, the use of modern technology and refined models has seen gold exploration in Tanzania grow rapidly, in turn transforming the country into one of the fastest-emerging gold producers in Africa, behind only South Africa and Ghana. Yet despite the relatively recent expansion of the sector, the presence of gold beneath Tanzania has been known about since it was first discovered in the Geita region in the late 1800s.

“Base Resources Limited is pleased to advise the commencement of ore processing through the mining unit and wet concentrator at the Kwale Project. Following two weeks of water commissioning and control logic testing, the first ore from the central dune has now been taken through the dozer trap mining unit and the wet concentrator,” read a company statement.

When President Jacob Zuma appointed Elizabeth Dipuo Peters to the post of Energy Minister in 2009 one of the key performance areas he asked her to progress was getting greater private sector involvement in power generation.

1994 will undoubtedly forever be the year that mankind associates with the modern South Africa. One does not need to be a historian to know that it was here that the days of apartheid slowly came to end, resulting in the multi-racial democratic election that brought Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) to power.

It is fair to say that until recently Kenya was not generally renowned for being a destination for mining investment. However now, with the world’s eyes focused firmly on Africa as an epicentre for mining activities, Kenya is emerging as a location of particular interest in the wake of developments that have proven that the country does indeed hold significant mineral-based potential.

Since we last spoke to Roman Crookes, project manager of the R105 billion Medupi power station, he has refereed a game of two halves. The press has had a field day throughout the three years since June 2010, and any observer could be forgiven for thinking the site has been a battlefield. However in every problem lies an opportunity, and it was good to get a chance to hear firstly about the achievements of the project, then about the good that has come from the setbacks that have been encountered.

The licence has been granted by the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines following a detailed review by it and other government departments of the Project’s Feasibility Study and Environmental, Social and Health Impacts Assessment (ESHIA), which was approved in May 2013 by the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority and Ministry of Mines.

The first mains electricity that flowed in Zambia came from a small coal fired station in the capital Livingstone, but even that did not cover the entire city. Zambia had to wait till 1938 to get its first hydro-electric power from that mighty power source, the Victoria Falls. Of course the copper mines needed power, but up to the middle of the last century they had to provide their own generation facilities.