Africa

Megaprojects don’t get much more ambitious than South Africa’s Coega project, which aims to do nothing less than create a mass production and services environment from scratch. It is a vision that is being achieved in small steps—and one or two large ones.

As BAT South Africa’s demand chain general manager Bernd Meyer prepares to hand over the reins to his successor, he talks to Gay Sutton about the transformation that has taken place over the past few years, both culturally and structurally, to improve customer and supply chain performance.

With a new beneficiation plant coming online, Assmang Manganese is preparing to double its production and become one of the biggest manganese mines in Africa, as Jane McCallion reports.

Formed in 1935 and listed on the Johannesburg Stock exchange the following year, Assmang Manganese Limited specialises in the mining of manganese, iron ores and chrome. The company, which is owned jointly by African Rainbow Minerals Limited and Assore Limited, operates mines in the Kalahari manganese field in the Northern Cape province.

Bombardier Aerospace has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Morocco for the establishment of a manufacturing facility in the North African country.

Bombardier Aerospace intends to invest approximately $200 million in equipment, buildings and start-up costs over the next eight years.

Cargill has signed a memorandum of understanding underlining its support for cocoa farmers and the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa.

The company has announced it will invest $3.25 million into its farmer training programme and support activities to enable cooperatives to obtain independent UTZ and Rain Forest Alliance certification.

The initiative includes a partnership with ANADER, Côte d'Ivoire's national rural development agency, to support farmer training and the distribution of 600,000 cocoa tree seedlings to participating cooperatives.

Village Main Reef Limited has offered to acquire the Blyvooruitzicht gold mine from DRDGold for R150 million.

Village said the acquisition would be an opportunity for it to apply specialist skills to unlock further value from Blyvoor going forward, as well as providing Blyvoor with access to Village’s significant management and operational skills, thereby creating a platform for sustainable and socially responsible future development.

Mining giant Anglo American has agreed to acquire the Oppenheimer family’s 40 per cent interest in De Beers for US$5.1 billion, taking its own stake up to 85 per cent.

Tullow Oil has agreed new production sharing contract (PSC) arrangements with the government of Mauritania and its joint venture partners, allowing it to progress exploration in the country.

Tullow said the deal would enable it to progress the appraisal and development of existing discoveries and pursue exploration in a new contract area covering 10,725 square kilometres, with Tullow as operator.

Sub-Saharan Africa holds some of the world’s biggest hydrocarbon opportunities. Warwick Blyth, executive director of the South African Oil and Gas Alliance (SAOGA) tells Jayne Flannery why South Africa offers the perfect local base for a fast-expanding hub of activity.

Against a background of accounts that Iran is oil-rich but petrol-poor, Alan Swaby looks at Tanzania, which is gas-rich and electricity-poor.

It’s all very well wanting to be green with a sustainable energy policy; but if nature doesn’t play ball, then as the Scottish poet Robert Burns tells us: the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.