The blocks are endowed with about 700 million tonnes of coal. Floated last June, the tender is part of recommendation of the Coal Road Map, the government's blueprint for maximising returns and monetisation of the country's estimated 212 billion tonnes of coal resources. In his Committee of Supply speech to Parliament this week, Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Kitso Mokaila announced that the two prospecting licences had been awarded to the Botswana Stock Exchange listed mining conglomerate. "My ministry developed a tender based licencing criterion for the issuance of coal prospecting licences as part of Phase One of the Coal Road Map. The tender for the first two blocks, Mmamabula South and Central, was awarded to Anglo American Corporation," he said.
The two blocks sit adjacent to the 2.4-billion-tonne Mmamabula East coalfields which was bought by Indian company Jindal group from CIC Energy last year in an P860 million deal. In June 2012, the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources put the Mmamabula South and Central blocks to tender after former owners of the rights, CIC Energy failed to develop the resource within the stipulated time.
