African Mining January 2020 | Page 27

COUNTRY IN FOCUS  COUNTRY IN FOCUS  The port city of Dar Es Salaam is an important link to Asia, the Middle East and Europe. increased its mineral resources at the Chilalo mine. Walkabout Resources began procuring machinery for manufacturing and Armadale Capital is also in the middle of their DFS study for the Magenge Liandu project. The fact that mining ground to a virtual halt in 2017 didn’t help the graphite cause in Tanzania much. Smith says that during this time other graphite sources such as mines in Mozambique and Madagascar gained traction. “There might still be room for the Tanzanian projects in the market due to the growing lithium battery sector in China that requires flake graphite, but I don’t feel that all these projects will come to fruition,” Smith adds. Independent geologist, consultant and regular contributor to African Mining, Nicolaas Steenkamp, says the dash for graphite has made Tanzania one of the hot spot countries for the exploration of this critical mineral in the Map 1: Geological map of Tanzania (Ministry of Minerals – June 2019) www. africanmining.co.za African Mining  January 2020  Mining 25 African Mining Publication African African Mining  January 2020  25