Africa

When we last featured Basil Read within this magazine in October 2012, much of our focus was on the group’s ongoing work on the St Helena airport project. Said article went into great depth regarding the efforts of the group to deliver the British Overseas Territory with its own international airport, and it soon became clear, to this writer at least, that this project would not only go on to be hugely significant for St Helena but for a group that was already able to boast an impressive track record.

With the FIFA World Cup kicking off in Brazil, the momentum South Africa built up since it hosted the event in 2010, and back to independence, seems to have stagnated,. The leading infrastructure player PPC Ltd believes that an Infrastructure Codesa could help relieve pressures on the industry and stimulate infrastructure development levels last seen in preparation for the 2010 World Cup.

“As first world economies seek new territories for innovation, trade expansion, conference tourism and investment, Kenya, as one of the leading vibrant stable economies in Africa, has provided a hugely viable and attractive option,” states Dominic Ngigi, Corporate Affairs Manager of Kenya Airports Authority (KAA).

Increased concern and focus on global warming has no doubt made it necessary for countries, industries and businesses to look for growth and development opportunities in a more sustainable manner. One particular example would be the global cement industry which has historically suffered from having a high carbon footprint due to the energy requirements and chemical process involved in cement manufacturing technology.

To say that 2013 was a good year for African Minerals is, in truth, something of a major understatement. While the company itself may be more modest about such things the reality is that this is the company that last year was responsible for completing Africa’s fastest major mine development.

Previously delayed for a number of years, the Simandou project is poised to become the largest iron ore and infrastructure project developed in Africa.

The $20 billion "investment framework" deal signed by the aforementioned players provides legal and financial backing for the project. If ratified, the three parties said they would complete a feasibility study, including timeline and costs, within about a year.

The Boikarabelo field in South Africa's Waterberg region, to the north of the country and close to the border with Botswana, is an outstanding coal asset by any standards. An extensive coal seam, between 120 and 130 metres in depth and containing zones of varying quality thermal and soft coking coal, lies only 20 metres below the surface in terrain that is flat and easy to get at. It is the ideal site for an open pit mine: the shallow overburden means that a small fleet of equipment can produce a lot of coal.

Established in 2007, when Severstal Group, one of Russia's most successful metals and resources corporations, decided to move into the gold market, Nordgold has since become recognised as one of the industry’s fastest-growing gold mining companies with operations based in West Africa, Kazakhstan and Russia.

With a name meaning “place of leopards” in the language of Sesotho, Mangaung, also widely referred to as Bloemfontein, is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa and one of the country’s three national capitals. Officially founded in 1846, “the city of roses”, as it is affectionately known due to both the abundance of the flowers in the city and its annual rose festival, is today home to approximately 370,000 people, while the Mangaung Local Municipality boasts a population of more than 645,000.

Who would invest in an airline? The industry is facing a lot of challenges right now with escalating fuel prices, reduction in passenger volumes caused by the global recession and arguably the growth of technology that allows people to communicate and confer without the need to travel. These are things that affect airlines all over the world, but in South Africa life is even more challenging for a private sector airline operator that has to compete with the heavily subsidised national carrier South African Airways (SAA) and its low-cost brand Mango.