Of whisky and diamonds: John Teeling speaks

Icons: Jim Gibson, Gavin Lamont, Manfred Marx at the discovery of the Orapa pit in 1967. Teeling is following in the pioneering explorers footsteps
Icons: Jim Gibson, Gavin Lamont, Manfred Marx at the discovery of the Orapa pit in 1967. Teeling is following in the pioneering explorers footsteps

One of regional mining’s most colourful characters, Irishman, John Teeling is an illustrious mineral explorer and global whisky magnate known in Botswana for his involvement in rich diamond discoveries such as Karowe Mine and others around Orapa. After years of narrow misses at previous editions of the Botswana Resource Sector conference, Staff Writer, MBONGENI MGUNI, finally sat across from Teeling this week and here reports the words of a multi-millionaire who for more than 40 years has searched for minerals everywhere from Ghana to Bolivia and from Iran to Zimbabwe

Getting into Botswana

“I came here in 2002. I had been working in Zimbabwe in gold but the business became difficult because of political uncertainty. I need as much certainty in an environment as possible because I take the risk in geology. I therefore moved with my highly trained people to the greenstone belt around Francistown.

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