Modern Mining July 2016

COAL

Major milestone for Mabesekwa Shumba Energy, a Botswana-based energy company dual listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Mauritius, has reported that the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for its Mabesekwa Export Independent Power Producer (MEIPP) project has been approved by Botswana’s Ministry of Environment,

the only producing coal mine in Botswana. Phumaphi – who holds a Masters of Engineering degree from the University of Sheffield in the UK and who started his career as an engineer with Debswana at its Jwaneng mine – gave an overview of Shumba and its two projects at the recent Botswana Resource Sector Conference in Gaborone. Outlining the business case for Shumba, he referred to the “chronic power shortages” in the Southern African region and noted that Eskom’s tariffs had increased by 300 % over the past seven years. He said South Africa was looking to source 3 750 MW of power from coal-based cross-border Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and that Shumba was well placed to take advantage of this opportunity. Elaborating on Mabesekwa, he said the coal resource was estimated at over 840 Mt at an average depth of between 50 and 60 m, starting at a depth of 18 m with an average thickness of 18 m. He stated that Shumba was partnered with an experienced power station developer with significant generation capacity globally

Wildlife and Tourism. The company’s MD, Mashale Phumaphi, describes this as a “major milestone” for the project, which envisages the development of an opencast coal mine and an associated mine-mouth power station.

A lthough it was only founded in 2011, Shumba controls a re- source of over 2 billion tonnes of thermal coal and has two advanced baseload coal-fired energy projects – Mabesekwa and Sechaba – totalling 900 MW in its portfolio. Mabesekwa is located 60 km south-west of Francistown while Sechaba is 40 km north of Palapye in the vicinity of Debswana’s Morupule mine,

Shumba’s Mashale Phumaphi (third from left) on site at Sechaba.

26  MODERN MINING  July 2016