In this article, World Bank senior counsel and African Mining Legislation Atlas (AMLA) project team lead Nneoma Nwogu writes about the AMLA’s impact over the past ten years.

New Proudly South African smelting technology, which uses 70% less electricity, cuts costs, slashes carbon emissions and can process low-grade material, has all the attributes needed to win back the top ferroalloy production renown that South Africa enjoyed in the not too distant past. The inventive new green, clean, economically competitive, locally patented smelting technology, which is tried, tested and proven, needs only 1.2 MW of power to produce a ton of ferrochrome compared with the conventional 4 MW of power needed to do so.

ASX-listed Lotus Resources’ recent infill drill programme has successfully converted a significant portion of the inferred mineral resources at the Letlhakane uranium project, in Botswana, into the indicated mineral resource category, with the indicated portion of the mineral resource estimate (MRE) now standing at 50%, CEO Greg Bittar says. The revised pit-constrained MRE has increased Letlhakane’s indicated mineral resources by 65% with global resources of 142.2-million tonnes at 363 ppm of uranium oxide for 113.7-million pounds. 

Global gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their first monthly outflow since April, losing $2.1-billion in November, according to industry body the World Gold Council. Europe (-$1.9-billion) led outflows, while North America, with $79-million of inflows, was the only region to report inflows.

London-listed potash development company Emmerson has raised £850 000, before expenses, through an oversubscribed placing and subscription of 130.77-million new ordinary shares of no-par value each in the share capital of the company at a price of 0.65p a share and 43.59-million attaching warrants with an exercise price of 3p a share and a term of seven years from the date of issuance. The fundraising was led by Shard Capital Partners.