Mineral revenues jump 63% as diamonds recover
Isaac Pinielo | Friday March 17, 2017 16:21
Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security minister, Sadique Kebonang said this when presenting his Committee of Supply speech to Parliament this week.
He noted that the mining industry experienced a global commodity price turndown over most of the first two quarters of 2016, mainly in the base metals and energy minerals.
However, he said the diamond market improved during the first quarter of 2016, which resulted in actual sales exceeding production due to sale of inventory from the year 2015.
Kebonang added that Debswana Diamond Company produced 20.9 million carats in 2016 compared to 20.4 million carats in 2015.
“Sales were 26.3 million carats compared to 14.7 million carats in 2015. Revenue from these sales was $3.9 billion and this compared favourably to $2.4 billion in 2015,” he said.
In addition, Boteti Mining Company produced 307,000 carats in 2016 compared to 377,000 carats in 2015.
Kebonang said Boteti upgraded their processing plant, which enabled them to recover exceptionally large stones, adding that despite the volatile diamond markets, Boteti mine continues to perform well.
He further indicated that the performance of base metal mines continued to decline in 2016 due to depressed commodity prices.
“Copper and nickel prices showed improvement from $2.06/lb to $2.65/lb for copper and $3.80/lb for nickel respectively from December 2015 to December 2016,” said the minister.
However, he said the prices remain a challenge for the marginal operations, noting that BCL and Tati Nickel mines were placed under provisional liquidation in October 2016 due to severe financial distress.
He mentioned that Khoemacau Copper Mine was granted a mining licence in March 2015 to mine copper and silver. “The company has also acquired mining licences from Discovery Metals following the liquidation of the latter. The project is currently at project financing stage,” said Kebonang.
He said there are notable developments in the energy minerals sub-sector as companies continue to show interest.
For instance, he said A-Cap Resources and African Energy Resources Botswana have acquired mining licences for uranium at Sese and coal at Makomoto, respectively.
Kebonang pointed out that gold production at Mupane Gold Mining was 833.06kg in 2016 as compared to 754kg in 2015.
In addition, he said, Morupule Coal Mine produced 1.9 million tonnes of coal in 2016 compared to 2.06 million tones in 2015.
“Coal production continues to be constrained by low off-take from Morupule B Power Station and Morupule A Power Station, which are the major consumers of coal.
The liquidation of BCL also contributed to the low off take,” he said.
He said Soda Ash and Salt sales were 288,500 tonnes and 435,000 tonnes respectively in 2016 compared to 258.9 thousand tonnes and 358.900 tonnes for corresponding figures in 2015.
“Production of soda ash and salt continues to be constrained by low off take,” he said.