Botswana government urged to develop infrastructure to support coal activities

Canadian based CIC Energy mining outfit with a 2.4 billion tonnes coal deposit in Botswana has challenged government to develop infrastructure to support coal activities in the country. Mr Greg Kinross CEO of CIC Energy told delegates attending Botswana’s Resource Sector Conference that success of coal projects in Botswana depends on government commitment. He said that “We need government to play a facilitation role and I think it’s now happening through the establishment of the Coal Development Unit.” He added that “Botswana needs to move fast to take advantage of the growing Indian import demand for coal.” The lack of transport infrastructure, in particular railway lines, is one of the biggest challenges hindering progress in the country’s coal sector. Botswana is currently investigating the development of a railway line from Botswana to the Waterberg coalfield, in Limpopo, South Africa, and to a port in Namibia. An alternative high-speed heavy rail route going east from Botswana through Zimbabwe to a port in Mozambique is also under discussion. Botswana government needs 8 to 15 billion US dollars to build a railway line to either the east or west of the country to reach Mozambique and Namibia ports respectively. CIC’s projects at its Mmamabula coal field in the southeastern part of the country include plans to export Botswana’s coal, develop a domestic power plant of 300MW, an export power plant of 1200MW and a coal-to-hydrocarbons project, is optimistic the economic indicators now favour its projects. Mr Kinross said that “The climate is starting to change for a number of projects that we are involved in.” CIC is waiting a power take off agreement from South Africa government and hopes to utilise an improved coal rail system in South Africa to export its coal. Source – Xinhua

DTC relocation taskforce starts work today

Mmegi The committee's main task will be to facilitate the inter-dependent factors of the relocation ranging from security, transport and many others. Our first meeting will be on Tuesday where we are going to come up with the terms of reference for each member," said Diamond Hub coordinator Jacob Thamage in an interview with Mmegi, on the sidelines of the recently held Diamond Pitso.