U.S global hunt for critical minerals arrives in Botswana
Mbongeni Mguni - Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Tuesday September 23, 2025 12:47
MATSILOJE: In 2016, a pall of devastation, sorrow and despair fell over the entire North East as a global meltdown in prices sank operations at Tati Nickel and BCL Mine.
For decades, as early as 1959 in the case of BCL, the base metal mines had anchored the economies of Selebi Phikwe and Francistown, providing employment, powering growth and oiling the expansion of downstream activities.
After years in limbo, the region is witnessing a Godsent miracle – the same minerals that sank their economy nine years ago have become amongst the world’s most sought after.
Copper, nickel, cobalt and other associated metals contained in the grounds at the former mines are essential in advanced technologies, electric vehicles, and renewable energy.
Where despair once hung palpably in the air, hope is springing in Phikwe and Francistown. In the former, a Canadian firm, NexMetals, is rapidly reviving operations at BCL Mine, while in Francistown, specifically in Matsiloje, Global Critical Resources Corp, a U.S firm, this week reopened Tati Nickel.
Both operations tentatively expect production to restart next year.
Trump’s mission
Anchoring the revival of both mines is the U.S ambition to secure deals in critical minerals outside of the reach and control of its major economic rival, China, in order to preserve future development. In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order categorising critical minerals such as copper and others as national security assets and establishing a Supply Chain Resiliency initiative.
The same order also directed U.S government financial agencies to fund exploration and home production of the specified critical minerals.
“Agencies that are empowered to make loans, loan guarantees, grants, equity investments, or to conclude offtake agreements to advance national security in securing vital mineral supply chains, both domestically and abroad... “Within 30 days of the date of this order, the President of the Export-Import Bank shall release recommended programme guidance for the use of mineral and mineral production financing tools authorised under the Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative to secure United States offtake of global raw mineral feedstock for domestic minerals processing, as well as under the Make More in America Initiative to support domestic mineral production.”
In July, NexMetals confirmed receipt of a $150 million Letter of Interest from the Export-Import Bank of the U.S, while in Giyani Metals, which is developing a manganese project in Kanye, received a similar $225 million offer in June.
Global Critical Resources Corp Chief Legal Officer, Nicole Kontrabecki, explained the U.S interest.
“I think the US has really woken up,” she told Mmegi in an interview. “It has realised that they've missed the boat in a lot of Africa and are really starting to focus on the continent. “That’s why I think there's a lot of support for what we're doing.”
GCR, is a newly formed entity grouping Tati Nickel (renamed Tataki Mining) and another operational copper mine in Chile. The Wilmington, Delaware-based group snapped up Tati’s Phoenix Mine for $15 million last year and plans to spend $200 million over the next decade revamping and expanding the operation, with $50 million due to be spent in just the first 18 months.
The group expects $4.2 billion in revenues over the next decade, with about $500 million pumped into domestic taxes.
At present, the local operation, Tataki, employs 50 people, but these numbers are expected to rise to 400 direct jobs and 3,000 indirect jobs.
Prior to GCR’s entry, the firms operating in the country’s nascent critical minerals sector were Canadian, being NexMetals and Giyani.
GCR, formed from NIU Invest, a firm founded and led by Austrian tycoon, Cevdet Caner, had a strategic reason to locate itself in the U.S.
On Tuesday, in front of 250 delegates including President Duma Boko and relieved community leaders who nearly lost faith after the 2016 meltdown, GCR officially launched Tataki in Matsiloje.
“It's a US alignment and that's why we have the mother company in the U.S,” CEO, Richard Bunning told Mmegi. “We have two assets in very different locations. “One has existing offtake that will be directed to the U.S, and the plan is the same with the offtake here. “Obviously, that’s depending on how legislation and the mining sector change in Botswana regarding value chain efficiencies and where we have to get our final product, but we will look at the offtakes with a U.S focus and from a US standpoint. “That was a conscious decision we made after acquiring both assets, given that we do have a very well-heeled general counsel from the U.S and a good alignment there.”
He added: “We also see it (the U.S) as a very good and big market that has grown a lot in the last ten to 15 years, and appreciate it has identified the necessity for these worldwide resources.”
With production expected in the first quarter of next year, Tataki will leverage on new technological advancements to produce a variety of metals and hydroxide salts that are widely traded internationally. Products will include nickel and cobalt hydroxide precipitates, copper cathodes, metal bars for platinoids (platinum, palladium, rhodium), and precious metals.
Local impact
The community of Matsiloje is in general far removed from the geopolitical and economic factors driving the global hunt for critical minerals.
Kgosi Sekgoma Eric Moipolai of Matsiloje said previous mining companies in the area had caused great suffering when they left.
“We suffered greatly where another mining company with great promises and so forth, left us with holes, pits, and our houses, our properties in the village, cracked,” he said at Tataki’s launch. “It is for that reason that we are saying let's not only inherit the bad things from the developments, let's also at least benefit.”
Moipolai said Tataki Mining was off to a great start, allocating an amount of P250,000 to the refurbishment of water supply to the local Community Junior Secondary School and partnering in other initiatives.
For Bunning, the employment numbers, value chain creation in the area and broader social impact, are priorities for local impact. The geopolitical drivers of the global critical minerals’ boom can be felt at ground level.
“We will have a social impact and we are already working with a school in Matsiloje. “We will look at other social projects and we have a social coordinator to make an impact beyond the positive economic impact we plan to have on the community. “We plan to do this not only in the short or medium term, but in the long term. “We will be making as big a difference as we can in the short and long terms.”
For government, the global critical minerals’ boom presents an opportunity tap into the country’s massive minerals resource for local, sustainable impact. Away from the North East where BCL, Tati are being revived and where another 2016 casualty – Mowana – is now back in production as Kopano Copper, the Kalahari Copperbelt holds significant untapped potential.
Running southwest to northeast, the 1,000-kilometre Kalahari Copperbelt is known to contain millions of tonnes amounts of copper, silver, lead, and the critical minerals sought after by the world. Just two mines, Khoemacau and Sandfire’s Motheo, are currently operational, while other players are at various stages of exploration.
The two mines’ output is supporting the country’s export earnings at when the country’s primary anchor – diamonds – is battling to recover from a prolonged downturn that has adversely affected the fiscus and the broader economy.
In North East, the critical minerals’ boom also resonates with government’s own priorities of transformation and value chain development.
“We are looking forward to this (region) being a metallurgical hub one that will reprocess what is already here and then to start exploring for others, platinum and other rare earth minerals,” Minerals and Energy minister, Bogolo Kenewendo, told Mmegi. “Most important is that we want to reduce the amount of our minerals that are being exported in raw form and we really start to add value here domestically.”
She described the concept as simple.
“We process here, some of the tailings from Selebi Phikwe and we ensure that this hub grows beyond Botswana, for Zimbabwe, for Zambia. “That's what we are currently working on facilitating with this particular company. “But we're hoping that we'll see more towards downstream and value chain growth in Botswana. “As the President said, the key has been, let's open up new mines, let's open up old mines. “The global trends are indicating that all the new industries need the mines and the minerals that we have. “We have to be strong players and then we have to decide exactly how much we also keep as a nation.”
The Ministry is set to soon launch a Mineral Resource Development Exploration Exploitation and Value Chain Strategy that Kenewendo says “truly aims to see that we're doing more with the resources that we have and ensuring that we are adding value and not just exporting raw materials”.
A rebirth
Critical minerals, rising from the ashes of BCL and Tati, offer the country an opportunity to learn the lessons of 2016. Where uncertainty, anger and hopelessness haunted the citizens of the North East, events far removed from them in the geopolitical stratosphere, present an opportunity for a rebirth, a more sustainable renaissance.
“We really aim to significantly increase the contribution of critical minerals and base metals to our mining output, and the contribution to economic growth and to transform this country into a competitive jurisdiction for private sector investment,” Kenewendo said at the launch.
Tati, a resource originally identified by Anglo-American in 1929 with a first feasibility in 1971, has become one of the first fruits of a critical minerals boom in the country.