African Mining March 2020 | Page 39

IN THE STOPE  South African’s get a foot in the door first and take advantage of our proximity and our knowledge of other African markets. The free trade agreement is a great opportunity for South Africa, particularly in West Africa, where there is a burgeoning mining industry and a boom in construction. In your experience, are South African companies expanding their footprint into the rest of Africa? They are, but close to 85% of that expansion is purely into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and especially into SACU and countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and the southern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is proof that where South African companies do have preferential access, they do well. But we remain most competitive and thrive in countries close to us, where our products are well suited and well accepted, but outside of the immediate neighbours we don’t have a particularly strong footprint. Are we still regarded as the gateway into Africa? This idea that South Africa is the gateway into Africa is totally wrong. We might be the gateway into Southern Africa (excluding Angola) but Nigeria is the gateway into West Africa, while Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire can be regarded as gateways into certain other hubs of influence in West Africa. Kenya is the gateway to East Africa, excluding Ethiopia and Cameroon the entry point into Central Africa. There are several African economies that are growing at phenomenal rates. Which African country, in your view, offers South African suppliers the most opportunities at the moment? Apart from the international space station, the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in the Rovuma Basin of Mozambique is the biggest investment in the world. Final Investment Decision (FID) on two of the three key projects have already been declared – and that is about USD30-billion worth of business – while there is another USD25-billion to USD30-billion which will reach FID in the first half of 2020. So, in total, that is about USD60-billion to USD65-billion worth of FID. These projects were long in the making. A lot of South African companies rushed up to Pemba and Palma in early 2010’s waiting for FID, which didn’t happen, they got their fingers burnt, and had to come back, and now they are reluctant to do it again. www. africanmining.co.za African Mining Publication Their Italian competitors, on the other hand, didn’t pack up and go home, they waited and did something else in the meantime. The province of Cabo Delgado is the epicentre of the gas development. Over the next decade, estimates are that about USD128-billion will be invested in that province, just in the gas sector. The Duncan Bonnett, partner and director at Africa House. African Mining African Mining  March 2020  37