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07.13
botswana
the current state of the uranium market. Nevertheless,
Letlhakane represents a big asset for Botswana and
will probably be the project that will eventually lead
to the country entering the ranks of the world’s ura-
nium producers.
Logistics the key
Moving onto African Energy, this company has argu-
ably been the most proactive in Botswana in advanc-
ing its coal assets and has been attacking the problem
of how to commercialise its coal resources on multiple
fronts, pursuing – at Sese – both an integrated power
project consisting of up to two 300 MW power sta-
tions, allied to two captive, 1,5 t/a coal mines, and an
export coal project with the potential to produce up to
20 Mt/a for export, primarily to Asian markets. Inade-
quate rail infrastructure is currently the biggest single
impediment to the development of Botswana’s coal-
fields but African Energy’s Tabeart pointed out that
the company had successfully trialled the route from
Francistown through Zimbabwe to the Matola coal
terminal in Maputo in November 2012. He said this
route could support a low cost 2 Mt/a export project,
the only prerequisite being some low-cost track im-
provement. He added that a recently completed study
had indicated that the route could be upgraded to in-
crease the rail capacity to between 10 and 20 Mt/a.
Looking longer term, Tabeart said that if Botswana
wanted to become a major exporter of coal, it needed
to make significant investment to improve rail in-
frastructure to ultimately bring capacity to plus 100
Mt/a. There was also a need for consolidation of the
country’s coal industry into fewer players with larger
project portfolios (5 to 10 Bt minimum) “to attract
multi-billion dollar infrastructure linked to equity
participation in project development.” Concluding,
he said that the long-term fundamentals for energy
coal were robust, particularly in terms of Asia and
Southern Africa, and that African Energy was well
placed to take advantage of this demand.
A core sample from Shumba Coal’s Sechaba coal project. A
prefeasibility study on the project, which is located 30 km north-
west of Palapye, is currently underway (photo: Shumba Coal).
