African Mining is looking forward to experiencing Investing in African Mining Indaba 2023 as we hit February and the new year with renewed energy and a clean slate to relay new stories of opportunity and new ideas leading to innovation and solutions for the African mining industry.
Moving forward, we bear in mind some of the insights delivered in The Big Picture: 2023 Outlook for Metals and Mining shared in October 2022 by S&P Market Intelligence, which pinpointed some of the challenges, opportunities and key trends expected to drive metals and mining industry strategy through 2023 and beyond S&P noted that deteriorating global macroeconomic conditions are expected to persist into early 2023, representing a downside risk to the metals and mining sector as many commodity prices slide and equity market support weakens. Producers will be impacted by narrowing margins, while the exploration sector will restrain activity amid tighter financing conditions. ‘
S&P anticipates that conditions will, however, improve as the year progresses once central banks gain the upper hand on inflation. Lower activity levels in the second half of 2022 and through 2023 will reinforce the importance of the metals and mining industry’s role in the global energy transition effort.
Supply constraints across commodities deemed critical to the effort are forecast to emerge as early as 2024, with demand expanding markedly on rising electric vehicles sales, the shift towards renewable energy technologies, and related transmission and distribution requirements.
As government policies increase focus on meeting critical materials requirements through domestic and regional supply chains, S&P notes that the mining sector should see additional support for the development of projects in the near-to-medium term, buoyed by prices that are expected to remain relatively high through 2026, compared with pre-pandemic levels.
The Investing in Mining Indaba therefore comes at an opportune time to allow African governments to promote mineral opportunities, hopefully enabled by progressive policy to encourage appetite for investment and exploration, as financing conditions become more stringent and difficult amid recession fears, which will impact exploration. Botswana is a case in point with its untapped mineral prospects, and thus our country in focus this month. Our sister company MTE will also be driving technical innovation in the mining space in Botswana in March this year – take a look at the journey the travelling exhibition company has mapped out in the country for the coming month.
While Dr Nicolas C Steenkamp investigates the prospects of exploiting metallic nodules from the seabed as an alternative source for battery metals to supplement the foreseeable future deficits, Seriti shares with us their strategy – setting the record straight when it comes to coal and the SERITI energy story, with renewables of course being an important focus area globally as the Energy Transition fuels medium-term demand per S&P.
Although the headwinds pointed out by S&P will need to be traversed, we can only be hopeful that the resource capability in Africa is what might save the day for our mining on the continent, as long as our governments manage the opportunities and supply value chain prudently..
References
The Big Picture: 2023 Outlook for Metals and Mining, S&P Global Market Intelligence < market.intelligence@spglobal.com> https:// pages.marketintelligence.spglobal.com/2023-metals-and-mining-industry-outlook-report-demo-emc.html?mkt_tok=NTY1LUJETy0x
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