The export arrangement with Botswana Railways also illuminated the way for other players in the local 212 billion tonne coal sector to the lucrative Indian and Chinese markets. In a webcast last week, AFR managing director, Frazier Tabeart said the company was evaluating a 1, 000 ton trial shipment in order to "study the optimisation of current rail and port capacity". "We believe that currently, there's a real opportunity for Botswana to become an exporter of coal in the short term," he said.
"We did a successful trial shipment of coal to Maputo and we are looking at how that route can be improved from an operating efficiency point of view." AFR and other advanced coal sector players view Mozambique as the gateway to lucrative Chinese and Indian exports, the two economies being the world's most voracious consumers of the energy mineral.
By ramping up its trial shipment from 25 to 1,000 tonnes, AFR hopes to gradually test the logistics and infrastructure in place for expanding its exports through Mozambique, ahead of the commencement of commercial mining operations at Sese.
Besides the coal export project, Tabeart said tenders for advanced studies on a 1.5 million ton per annum (Mtpa) coal mine had been awarded, with final delivery of the Bankable Feasibility Study due by the end of March next year. The 1.5 Mtpa coal mine is part of the Sese Integrated Power Project, and will fire the initial 300-megawatt power station, for which AFR recently signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with a regional power offtaker.
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