Tanzania is planning to increase its production of coal by more than three million tonnes annually as it rumps up its drive towards clean energy.
The country made its plans public at the start of the year through the Tanzania Mining Commission (TMC) which announced that the country has already increased it coal output from 1.5 million tonnes in the 2020/21 period to 1.56 million tonnes by the second half of this financial year 2022/23.
TMC Executive Secretary, Engineer Yahya Samamba, said Tanzania earned 211 million US dollars from the 2020/21 production of 1.5 million tones. He also made it clear that majority of this output was for export with more than 800,000 tonnes for the export market and a little over 60,000 tonnes consumed locally.
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Notably, Tanzania’s coal is exported largely to India, Poland and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Tanzania is also actively inviting investment into coal mining as the executive was quoted by local media; “…the government through the Mining Commission has continued to create an enabling environment for coal investors including the improvement of infrastructure such as roads, and electricity in collaboration with other government institutions,” he said.
Tanzania is inviting foreign investors to develop it coal mine in the Njombe Region, an area also rich in copper, gold and manganese. Other areas rich in coal include Rukwa and Mbeya.
Investment potential in Tanzania’s coal is huge with the country reporting total coal reserves of over 1.9bn tonnes.
Despite these huge deposits and the country’s dire shortage of energy, Tanzania consumes only about 327,861 tonnes of its coal per year. To be clear, the said available coal in Tanzania is representative of the available deposit and not what is extracted. In fact, to meet its own domestic needs, Tanzania actually imports 10% of its annual coal consumption.
Tanzania’s coal output ambitions are not new. For over a decade now, the country has been working to increase its output with the help of major investors like China. As of June 2011, China Energy invested over US$400 million in Tanzania’s Kiwira coal mine that is estimated to generate 200 megawatts of electricity.
In the same year, September 2011, China’s Sichuan Hongda Co. Ltd also signed a US$3 billion deal to mine coal (and iron ore) in Tanzania. This time, the investment was for the development of its Mchuchuma Coal Mine, a site reported to have well over 480 million tonnes of coal reserves.
That deal also included investment in a 600-megawatt (MW) thermal power station. The deal was followed on its heels by the biggest project in the entire bloc yet, the Ngaka project – East Africa’s largest operational coal mine.
This single location, that is comprised of two sub-basins, Mbalawala in the south and Mbuyura-Mkapa to the north has a total proven coal resources estimated to be in excess of 367 million tonnes.
The Ngaka Coal site is projected to produce between 2-3 million tonnes of coal all of which is meant for export. Further still, the site has an estimated annual production rate of 4-5 million tonnes per annum and it can do so for the next 50 years.
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In 2016, UK’s Edenville Energy Plc acquired a mining license to develop the Rukwa coalfields in Tanzania’s southwestern region.
These coalfields are made up of the Mkomolo, Namwele, and Muze deposits and are estimated to hold some 173 million tonnes, that is enough coal to keep a 120 MW coal-fired power plant running for 30 years nonstop.
Hardly two years after the UK company invested, total production exceeded 75,442 tonnes and the following year, in 2019, production increased by 37,239 tonnes. The UK company is looking ramp up production to 10,000 per month, that is 120,000 tonnes per annum.
In January 2021, Tanzania China International Mineral Resource Ltd. (TCIMRL) requested tax breaks for the importation of heavy machinery and relief on fuel needed for coal extraction at the Mchuchuma and other sites.
It should be pointed out that at last year’s COP27 that was held in Egypt, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu presented an energy transition plan that proposed the country’s ambition to produce clean energy ‘without harming the environment.’
Tanzania’s President presented a US$18 billion plan to build renewable power generation but one year later, the country is working to increase its coal output. The contradiction is glaring but it speaks to the need for international funding to help countries like Tanzania move from dependency on dirty energy like coal.
The production and consumption of coal worsen the ongoing climate change that has seen countries that depend on rain fed agriculture like Tanzania, suffer great losses through failed crop yields and increase in tropical diseases both in plants and animals.
Most of the Horn of Africa is facing severe drought owing to failed rains that is the direct result of climate change and global warming, The burning of coal only worsens the effects of climate change affecting the very countries that are now seeking to increase its output, like Tanzania.
“Even the most advanced coal plant produces around 30 times more CO2 than wind and hydro, twenty times more than solar and geothermal, and 50% more than natural gas,” asserts ODL.
The Internal Monetary Fund (IMF) maintains that; “Our estimate is that by doing so (ending coal use) the world would yield a net gain of nearly $78 trillion through the end of this century.”
“That’s around four-fifths of global gross domestic product now, and would be equivalent to about 1.2 percent of annual global economic output during the period.”
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Tanzania, and many other developing countries are battling with the dilemma of exploiting their natural resources for developmental growth while at the same time creating a path towards sustainable development. The global south will need the support of the rest of the world to make the leap to green energy if initiatives combating climate change are to have meaningful gains.
