Modern Mining July 2017

COUNTRY FOCUS: BOTSWANA

Shumba plans to fast-track Mabesekwa into production

Botswana has massive coal resources but none of the current generation of coal explorers in the country has yet managed to get into production, in part because of the logistical challenges of getting coal to market from the land- locked country. Shumba Energy, which has a portfolio

of advanced projects in Botswana with a total coal inventory of 4,5 billion tonnes, is intending to break the pattern with its fully permitted Mabesekwa project, as its Chairman, Alan Clegg, recently explained to Modern Mining in an interview on the sidelines of the Botswana Resource Sector Conference in Gaborone.

A ccording to Clegg, Shumba will fast-track Mabesekwa into operation with the target for first coal production being the second half of next year. “The project is ‘shovel ready’ and we’re very confident that we can supply the coal it pro- duces into the Southern African market,” he says. “We’re also planning to establish an In-

Coal specimen from the Sechaba project. The estimated SAMREC-compliant resource is 571 Mt GTIS (gross tons in situ). dependent Power Producer (IPP) operation further down the line, which would see an initial 300 MW power plant using circulating fluidised bed technology being built between 5 and 6 km from the coal mine mouth. “The idea is that this would supply power into the South African market and we have, in fact, formally registered our intent to put in a bid to the Southern African Power Pool and related authorities in terms of the Coal Border Power Procurement Programme which is designed to secure up to 3 750 MW of power from IPPs. The results of this are still pending. In addition, the project has been short-listed in the Botswana government’s Greenfield Coal Baseload IPP Programme.” He adds that devel- opment of Mabesekwa has not been premised on the conclusion of IPP agreements and that its development as a standalone mining opera- tion is perfectly feasible. Located 60 km south-west of Francistown (and close to the Sese project of African Energy Resources) in an area originally drilled by Shell decades ago, Mabesekwa was acquired

Alan Clegg pictured on the Shumba Energy stand at the Botswana Resource Sector Conference.

44  MODERN MINING  July 2017