Why a bidding war has erupted over Mupane
Mbongeni Mguni | Tuesday August 26, 2025 14:28
On August 26, bidders lock horns on whose offer is the best to take over Mupane Gold Mine, the country’s sole gold operation where operations have been suspended since March 2024.
According to documents circulating recently, of the ten companies that responded to the liquidator’s Request for Offer in June, just three paid the refundable P1 million deposit.
As part of the liquidation process, creditors will have the opportunity to vote on one of the three proposals on the table, each offering different values and terms.
One bidder, Nova Africa, is offering $21 million as a once-off payment, which includes the signing of agreements, together with a 45-day due diligence period. Nova is a newly registered company with 49% held by citizens with mining and technical backgrounds, and the balance owned by a United Arab Emirates firm.
ULSAN, another bidder, has offered $500,000 to buy the site and, after a 15-month due diligence, says it could offer a final price of up to $15 million. Trollope Botswana, the final bidder, has requested more time for due diligence activities before making an offer.
Between the first creditors’ meeting and after the second was botched in June, tensions have risen over the future of Mupane.
Bidders involved in the race have alleged that the process has been weighed on by political supremos at the highest level, with the Leader of the Opposition, Dumelang Saleshando officially demanding clarification from Minerals and Energy minister, Bogolo Kenewendo, in July.
While Kenewendo has responded to the allegations, denying any political or government hand in the liquidation process, allegations continue on social media and other platforms suggesting that the scales are being tipped in favour of one bidder over the others.
The August 26 meeting is therefore seen as critical, as the liquidator will lay out the three options on the table and request votes from creditors.
According to media reports, creditors, who include government, former employees, utility companies, contractors and others, were collectively owed more than P100 million.
Going by the Companies Act, the weight of creditors’ votes is tied to the proven value of their claim, meaning that government and its related entities could enjoy the lion’s share of voting powers at next week’s meeting.
The resources
According to available records, Mupane’s various deposits have lifespans ranging from two to fives years and deposits which, by most industry standards, rank the operation as small.
Documents publicised by auctioneers in June indicated that Mupane’s various deposits, as at February, held measured resources of approximately 83,500 ounces of gold - a figure easily dwarfed by many other operations in the region.
Indicated and inferred resources across the different deposits at Mupane added up to about 455,000 ounces, according to the auctioneers’ documents, a size that again is small, according to global guidelines.
Gold mining in Botswana traces back to the Mupane area near Francistown in the 15th Century and in fact, the precious metal was the country’s first mined resource in 1866. Gold mining activities in those decades were largely small-scale, low tech or rudimentary and haphazard.
Commercial scale operations began in 1998 with the arrival of Canadian miner, Gallery Gold, which was the first to try and link the various deposits or pits to a single processor based at Mupane.
Gallery Gold exited the mine in 2011, selling to fellow Canadian firm, Galane Gold, which in turn disinvested in May 2022 via a buyout by a majority citizen-owned firm formed by mine managers. At each exit, the departing investors have cited commercial viability or scale issues at Mupane, a consideration confirmed by the size of the known resources and their lifespan.
The prize
Analysts tracking the developments at Mupane say the primary driver of interest and consequently hostilities, in the bidding for the gold mine, is the upswing in prices of the precious metal.
Gold prices hit historical highs of $3,500 per ounce earlier this year and are expected to trend at highs this year and into 2026, powered by uncertainty in the global economy.
Gold is not just one of the first minerals humans being ever set value on, but it also the global safe haven that investors and indeed governments resort to when economies are shaken. In turbulent times such as the current chaos set off by President Donald Trump’s global, gold is highly sought after as a historically safe store of value against the vagaries of other investments.
As at Wednesday, spot gold prices were up about 28% from the beginning of the year, with an ounce valued at $3,346.38. This is equivalent to more than P45,000 for an amount equal to about two and half tablespoons.
Mupane therefore offers the opportunity to take possession of a geologically known resource, with easy logistics and established utility connections, at a time when bargain hunters are sweeping the globe looking for just such pickings.
The processing plant and other equipment remains onsite and ready to rumble, allowing the successful bidder to quickly mobilise labour and restart production.
The sweetener
Besides the rampaging gold price, the icing on the cake appears to be the tailing resource available at Mupane.
Tailings are large amounts of large piles of waste material left over from decades of mining operations, after processing. Essentially, in the centuries that gold mining activities have taken place around Mupane, these large dumps have built up in the processing of ore.
However, there’s high value in the tailings. Due to the evolution of ore processing over the decades, gold resources get left behind in the piles due to the ineffective technology used in that time period.
Miners build up tailings dump during the lifespan of their activities, knowing that as technology improves, they will be able to go back and tap whatever is left behind in the piles.
At Mupane, an auctioneers’ document estimated that the tailings could hold 103,160 troy ounces of gold, an amount that in turn could yield nearly $334 million at current gold prices. At the current exchange rate, this could be comfortably worth more than P4 billion.
The tailings figures provided by the auctioneers’ documents are unconfirmed by other sources, but even if incorrect, they suggest there is strong value in the dumps around Mupane.
In addition, while the deposits around the mine have lifespans of only up to five years and need to be mined, the tailings can be tapped for up to ten years and only require processing – a vastly cheaper route to value for any miner.
While the values suggested by the tailings sound astronomical, according to the Companies Act, the liquidation process seeks to ensure that creditors get as much back of their dues, a fact through which they will analyse the three bids on the table next Thursday.
The country’s sole gold mine looks set to bounce back into operation, but it remains unclear into whose hands it will fall.