Botash target doubling earnings to P300m
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday January 29, 2016 15:20
Botash, which is a 50 percent joint partnership between government and a South African company Chlor Alkali Holdings (CAH) group, currently produces about 300, 000 tonnes of Soda Ash per annum and about 530, 000 tonnes of salt per annum. “We want to grow our presence in the sub-Saharan Africa by developing customer base for soda ash and salt as the production of the salt is limited by the lack of market and transportation,” he said, during a media tour of the company yesterday
Currently, Botash exports about 42 percent of its salt to South Africa, followed by Zambia at 24 percent, Zimbabwe with 16 percent, Malawi with seven percent, DRC with two percent while four percent is used in the country as cattle feed.
The company also supplies almost 100 percent of the glass factories in South Africa with soda ash. Regionally, Botash faces competition from its sister company in Walvis Bay which is owned by CAH while in the sub-Saharan there is Kenya.
Mphathi said Botash wanted to increase fine salt production and include forward integration into small packs as well as to continue with commercial negotiations such as partnering with Air Liquide in the trading of carbon dioxide.
“We want to have a hub in Zambia to make our products readily accessible to customers and develop pre-packs as we are concluding warehousing,” he said. “Our marketing is being done by Botash South Africa which has been doing it for almost two years now.” Mphathi said transportation remained the biggest challenge as Botash preferred rail transport.
He explained that 50 percent of the salt produced by Botash was chemical salt, 32 percent is coarse salt and 23 percent fine salt. About soda ash, he said 99 percent of it is dense salt and one percent light soda ash.