The Botswana Chamber of Mines (BCM) believes the country can expand the scope of minerals beneficiation to include copper and coal. Speaking at a panel discussion during the recent Electra Mining 2017, chief executive officer of the chamber Charles Siwawa said if diamond beneficiation has been successful since the relocation of De Beers’ Sightholder activities from diamond cities around the world to Gaborone, “we can also do the same for other minerals”.
Siwawa singled out copper and coal especially where there is already advanced work on exploration and mine developments. In the copper circuit, a prefeasibility study for a smelter to beneficiate copper from the Kalahari Copper Belt, operating and mothballed mines in that region is at finanlisation stages.
In the coal front, Botswana Oil Company has tested the market with an expression of interest tender for its coal to liquids project that could beneficiate Botswana coal. The country’s coal resource is estimated at 212 billion tonnes and most of it is still underground.
The coal resource according to Chamber of Mines is one of the largest in the world and second only to South Africa in the continent. According to Siwawa coal can be used in three different industries and drive the country’s economic diversification agenda.
Siwawa said coal can be used in many industries like coal-fired power generation, coal-to-liquids and can also be used in production of fertilisers. “Botswana wants to be self sufficient in food. We can use coal to produce fertilisers and produce food”.
“There is a saying that coal should not be used anymore,” Siwawa pointed out; however, he said their philosophy at the Chamber is that Botswana should sell coal across the border especially to South Africa where there is demand for the black diamond.
“We are saying let’s make money for Botswana,” Siwawa told Electra Mining exhibition. “Yes, it is controversial, but let’s go for it”.
He conceded that “we know and acknowledge environmental challenges” but said Botswana should use that coal and do a research on the environmental impact. “We need to extract those (impurities) before we can release it. Coal remains the cheapest, however it damages the environment”.
Siwawa admitted that while the Chamber knows government is going for solar to promote cleaner energy, he advised that they should be investigating what is technologically available to extract that coal.
Coal remains the most controversial mineral especially when it is used to produce coal. Institutions like the World Bank are reluctant to finance coal projects on concerns over the environmental impact.
“Yes, the World Bank will not give is money, but we will get it somewhere”.
On copper, Siwawa said a prefeasibility study has been done on copper refinery saying the outcome is positive and already international companies have shown interest in participating in the project. A smelter or refinery is capital intensive and could cost around $900 million to build. Labour costs account to 65% of total costs while smelter energy costs account for 30-35% of costs.
He said already a possible location for the smelter has been identified although he declined to name the location.
There is currently one operating copper mine in the country, three on care and maintenance and additional two are in the pipeline.
The Kalahari Copper Belt (KCB) in north-west Botswana is a relatively under-explored emerging copper province with a total of over 4Mt contained copper and 160Moz contained silver in current reported Mineral Resources. There are three major exploration and development projects in the area including MOD’s Mahumo deposit and Cupric Canyon Capital’s Zone 5 deposit.
The KCB stretches discontinuously for 800 km from central Namibia to northern Botswana. It consists of folded and greenschist metamorphosed metasedimentary rocks along the north-west edge of the Kalahari Craton. The Cu-Ag deposits occur in chemically reduced shales and siltstones that overlie oxidised sandstones with the distribution of mineralisation being structurally related. The mineralisation is typically predominately bornite, chalcocite, and chalcopyrite.
Botswana is not only attractive for its geological potential, being ranked 2nd in the Africa Investment Attractiveness Index, below Namibia (2014 Fraser Institute Annual Mining Survey).
BCL had the only nickel smelter in the country, but since the liquidation of the company it has been left idle despite the recent P700 million refurbishment. BCL’s main product was nickel, while it smelted copper as a by-product.
