Browsing: Natural resources

A mining pit owned by Glencore PLC. The giant is a die-hard fossil fuels backer and won’t relinquish itself of “dirty” assets. www.theexchange.africa

Strong demand for its commodities was the result of supply chain disruptions being experienced the world over. Nagle who succeeded long time chief executive Ivan Glasenberg stated that coal was the star of the show for the company. The high demand for coal was the result of little to no activity being done by mining companies worldwide in terms of building coal mines.

These days coal is not only a dirty commodity but “coal mining” is a dirty word so to speak. It borders on profane in a world that is now strongly driven by ESG to even mention the development of a coal mine. That being the case many players in the coal mining space are finding it increasingly difficult to secure funding for coal mine development projects. 

This has played well into the hands of Glencore which has happily supplied the so-called dirty commodity to eager customers. Shareholders …

Africa produces 70 per cent of the world’s Cobalt. Value addition could make it better for countries engaged in the minerals economies. www.theexchange.africa

The African economies are not diverse enough to help them navigate tough times like the one posed by the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

This means that when the sectors that are popular in these economies are hit, the countries suffer immensely and take longer to recover. This is no different now and with projections that the economies will slow to about 2 per cent growth continent-wide.

Despite Africa’s immense wealth of natural resources and human capital, limitations still remain since the countries have no capacity to add value to these resources. For instance, Africa should be producing steel but it does not since it has to export the raw materials to be processed elsewhere denying the continent the much-needed revenues.

Why Central Africa is dragging Africa’s growth

Speaking in Kigali, Rwanda last December, the African Union Infrastructure Envoy Raila Odinga said that Africa needs to go beyond just producing the raw …