MINERAL INDUSTRY OF AFRICA


Mineral industry of Africa

The Mineral industry of Africa is one of the largest mineral industries in the world. Africa is the second biggest continent, with 30 million km² of land, which implies large quantities of resources. For many African countries, mineral exploration and production constitute significant parts of their economies and remain keys to future economic growth. Africa is richly endowed with mineral reserves and ranks first or second in quantity of world reserves of bauxite, cobalt, industrial diamond, phosphate rock, platinum-group metals (PGM), vermiculite, and zirconium. Gold mining is Africa's main mining resource.

African mineral reserves rank 1st or 2nd for bauxite, cobalt, diamonds, phosphate rocks, platinum-group metals (PGM), vermiculite, and zirconium. Many other minerals are also present in quantity. The 2005 share of world production from African soil is the following : bauxite 9%; aluminium 5%; chromite 44%; cobalt 57%; copper 5%; gold 21%; iron ore 4%; steel 2%; lead (Pb) 3%; manganese 39%; zinc 2%; cement 4%; natural diamond 46%; graphite 2%; phosphate rock 31%; coal 5%; mineral fuels (including coal) & petroleum 13%; uranium 16%.


Africa is the world's top producer of numerous mineral commodities and has the world's greatest resources of many more, but most of Africa still lacks systematic geological mapping which could bring to light a much greater resource base. Unfortunately, most of Africa's minerals are exported as ores, concentrates or metals, without significant value-addition. There is thus a large potential for mineral beneficiation. Africa also has significant known resources of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) and has large biomass and bio-fuels potential (ethanol, bio-diesel), especially in the tropics. In addition, it has massive hydro-electric potential (e.g. Inga 45GW, Congo River 200GW) and largely un-assessed geothermal potential along the Great African Rift Valley.

Africa's dire need to industrialise is universally acknowledged. The structural transformation of our economies must be an essential component of any long-term strategy to ensure the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa, eradicate poverty and underpin sustainable growth and development across our continent. The key issue, however, is in the formulation and implementation of workable industrialisation strategies based on our continent's unique strengths, rather than the emulation of strategies that may have been effective in other contexts. A resource-based African industrialisation and development strategy must be rooted in the utilisation of Africa's significant resource assets to catalyse diversified industrial development, as was successfully implemented by several erstwhile resource-based economies in the developed world such as in Finland, Sweden, Germany (especially in the Ruhr region), and the US over a century ago and to some extent in more recently in middle income countries Malaysia, Brazil and South Africa .

Resource-based development and industrialization strategies are not a new mantra. The vision that mineral resources could be used to catapult Africa to modernization has been articulated in many African plans and development strategies at national and regional levels (e.g. Lagos Plan of Action, SADC Mineral Sector Programme, Mining Chapter of NEPAD, and, most recently, the Africa Mining Partnership). However, most of those plans and strategies were centred in developing ambitious and grandiose projects designed with a very narrow “mining box” mentality. The projects were very capital intensive and dependent on foreign inputs. Most collapsed because they were inefficient and unsustainable given the low level of infrastructure development, market imperatives and weak knowledge base in the recipient countries.

Nonetheless, Africa's mining industry is in promising, we are looking forward to the African takeoff.

Zenith cooperate with all of the african.