With a stable legislative environment, backed by an eager govern- ment looking to grow its gross domestic product (GDP), Botswana’s mining industry has a positive outlook for the coming year, with a number of projects coming on line.

 

Mining contributes about 40% to the country’s GDP and 50% of its tax revenues, which represents a dramatic growth in the mining industry since its independence in 1966, when mining contributed just 1% of GDP.

This growth was attributable to the development and discovery of a number of major diamond deposits. Botswana’s mining industry provides employment for about 13 000 people, of which 80% are employed by the two biggest mining companies, Debs-wana and BCL.

Botswana is now the world’s leading diamond producer in terms of the quality and grade of its diamonds, but also hosts significant copper, nickel, cobalt, gold, soda ash and coal deposits, which are currently being exploited and developed.

The most recent project in the country is mining company Discovery Metals’ Boseto copper project, valued at $175-million.

The project is located on one of 14 prospecting licences, covering an area of about 10 100 km2 within the Kalahari Copperbelt – a previously poorly explored extension of the Zambian Copperbelt – and consists of three main prospects – Zeta, Plutus and Petra.

A bankable feasibility study has indicated that the resources and reserves can support a three-million-ton-a-year copper/silver operation over a five-year life-of-mine.

The company states that pro- gress on the ramp-up of production continues, with its devel- opment plan including the estab- lishment of openpit and underground mining operations to feed a three-million-ton-a-year concentrator for a 15-year period, with yearly production forecast at more than 35 000 t of copper and one-million ounces of silver.

Underground mining is expected to start from the Zeta prospect in 2014 and production is expected in 2015.

“Further initiatives to improve mining productivity are continuing,” the company states, adding that during December, the mine produced 3.2-million tons, including waste ore. The initiatives for improving mining production announced in November increased production and will help ensure consistent supply of ore to the concentrator in future.

 

Further, with the temporary suspension of the deepening of the Zeta pit in late November, lifted on December 24, the company can now mine the thicker, mainly sulphide ore at deeper levels of the Zeta pit.

The mining company has faced some challenges during the last year, with the Boseto concentrator losing the equivalent of 14 working days during December, owing to insufficient ore at the start of the month and the failure of a ball mill gearbox.

However, this failure did not affect ore crushing in the last nine days of December, which meant that crushed ore stocks at month-end exceeded 40 000 t and run-of-mine stocks had also built up significantly.

Milled tonnage for December was 118 000 t at an average daily rate of 8 432 t/d for the days operated, representing 100% of the design production rate.

The gearbox has since been reinstalled and mill operations restarted on January 8.

 

Meanwhile, the company remains positive, as the Boseto concentrator is expected to maintain or exceed design throughput rates, with enough ore feed expected to be available under normal circumstances.

 

The company reports that one of its other significant challenges, bottlenecking at production, is being investigated to accurately determine the upside capacity of the installed plant, including ongoing production and expansion planning. Indications are that a higher-than-design processing rate may be obtainable.

 

Coal Prospects

Another project in progress in the country is the Moiyabana coal project, located about 90 km from the Morupule mine and power station, and 50 km from existing rail infrastructure in central east Botswana, just north of Kodibeleng Village.

Jaquar Ventures owns 100% of the project and, in March 2011, Australian exploration company Hodges Resources reached an agreement with the company to acquire up to 90% of the equity of the company. Hodges Resources has since exercised its option to acquire the 90% share in Jaquar.

The project consists of two prospecting licences, PL93/2008 and PL94/2007, covering a total of 593.1 km2, which lie within the south-east central Kalahari subbasin of the Karoo Supergroup.

A drilling campaign late last year confirmed a maiden resource of 768-million tons, a 358-million-ton indicated resource within the depths amenable to opencut mining and a 410-million-ton inferred resource. An additional 614-million to 897-million tons of inventory coal has also been estimated, but the value and timeframe of the project have not yet been disclosed.

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n September, Hodges Resources MD Mark Major said, while the confirmation of a maiden resource for the project is pleasing for the company, the board had decided not to increase its stake in the Moiyabana project, given the solid progress and recent developments at Hodges’ flagship Morupule South coal project.

Meanwhile, further interpretation of seam correlations and the extent of the shallow coal in the central area will be investigated. No additional drilling is envisaged in the near term.

Also in the coal mining sector, CIC Energy Corporation, which holds a 100% equity stake in four projects in the Mmamabula coalfield, is upbeat about the growth prospects of the landlocked country’s mining industry.

The Mmamabula coalfield, which has a global mineral resource estimate of 2.4-billion tons in the measured and indicated categories, will supply coal to the export market and, with the 1 500 km Trans-Kalahari railway line proposed to be constructed by a transportation consortium, the coal will be shipped through a port in Namibia.

Construction of the export mines will take around three years to first significant produc- tion, followed by a production ramp-up period, while the railway line will take three to four years to construct.

The government of Botswana has announced its Coal Sector Development Plan and its intention to make a decision this year on a rail line to be completed in 2016/17 to export coal.