Botswana had massive gas resources, Minerals and Energy Minister Charles Tibone revealed during yesterday's ministerial panel discussions at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town.

The former permanent secretary in Botswana's Minerals and Energy Ministry, who became an entrepreneur before his election to the Botswana Parliament in 2004, said initial indications were that the country had 60-trillion cubic feet of coal-bed methane gas. He said the recent coal-bed methane gas discovery held out hope for the use of gas for commercial and industrial purposes. Though the search for coal-bed methane was still at an early stage,indications were that resources would be as high as 60-trillion cubic feet of available gas. Government-funded early investigations had resulted in enticing the private sector to explore further for this gas, for which there was excellent prospectivity.

Moreover, the new prospective coal-bed methane and base-metals projects in Botswana held out the prospect of financial-services solutions in that companies would be looking at ways of raising venture capital for the development of these projects. While the traditional practice was for investing companies to raise capital from their home countries, minerals' development in Botswana also presented an opportunity for Botswana's drive to ensure that a financial-services sector took root.

Four mining companies were currently listed on Botswana Stock Exchange's venture-capital board and the continuing activities of the Botswana Financial Services Centre was presenting further opportunity for investors in the mining sector, operating anywhere in Africa, to establish their group holding companies, treasury, financial administration and support functions in the Southern African country. An international financial services company was already providing specialised risk management services to mining companies in several African countries from its offices in Botswana and financial services enterprises were being attracted to Botswana through its absence of foreign exchange control, taxation incentives and favourable regulatory environment. Financial services had been cited as one of the service sector diversifications that presented the highest potential to broaden Botswana's economic base, which was a current pursuit. Botswana was also endowed with vast coal resourc es totalling 212-billion tons, which had not been fully explored.

Interest in the coal deposits were concentrated on the Morupule and Mmamabula coal fields. Reserve so far proven were 7.2-billion tons of coal, made up of 2.9-billion tons at Morupule and 4.3-million at Mmamabula.

There were also thermal coals for direct feeding into power stations or that could be washed and exported into international steam coal markets.

Projections for 2007 to 2010 were tilting in favour of coal exploitation to correct the regional imbalance in the supply and demand for electricity in the SADC region, which was presenting opportunities for the development of mines to feed the coal-fired power stations with coal from the Mmamabula coalfield.

The impending electricity deficit had also motivated the country's local electricity supplier, Botswana Power Corporation, to expand its power station by 400 MW from its present 132 MW, which would require doubling of capacity from the current million tons of coal a year to more than two million tons a year.

All of Botswana's major coalfields were in close proximity to the rail and power line infrastructure. Morupule was already linked to the main railway line, which cut through the western extent of the Mmamabula deposit.

Mmamabula was well situated for both an export power station and an export coal mine, firstly because electricity from a future power station could be fed into the South Africa grid 60 km away at Ellisras and secondly, Mmamabula straddled the border between Botswana and the part of South Africa known as the coal-rich Waterberg.

An export mine would thus be only 60 km from the same South African rail infrastructure that was used to export coal from Grootegeluk coal mine in the Limpopo province to international markets through the port of Richards Bay.

The railway line linking Mmamabula to the coal line at Ellisras would present opportunities for the exporation of Mmabula coal to world markets.

The increase in the search for both diamond and non-diamond minerals was encouraging. What was also noteworthy was the international flavour of the companies searching for base metals, gold and platinum group elements. Opportunities were emerging in both coal and coal-bed methane to create further employment and to broaden the production base.

Africa was faced with many challenges that were being faced at both continental and regional levels under the umbrella of strategies for the New Partnership for Africa's Development.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) had set clear targets in its regional strategic vision of achieving a free trade area by 2008, a common customs union by 2010 and a common market by 2016. In the minerals sector, the plan called for the harmonisation of SADC mining policies.

Employment creation and poverty reduction remained the immediate roles of governments. Their approaches to addressing these problems were widespread and had been given high priority in SADC.

The important aspect to note that there was widespread appreciation of the significant role that as mining played to achieving the all-important goals of employment and poverty alleviation. In the long term, this contribution held hope for the sustained transformation of the economies of many of the SADC countries from subsistence pastoral farming into modernised industrial societies.

While Botswana's relative prosperity derived from diamonds, it also faced the problems of high unemployment and poverty. In his 2005 state-of-the-nation address, Botswana President Festus Mogae observed that the current irony of Botswana's economic situation was that unemployment was highest among Botswana's youth, while they were the best educated among the population.

The biggest challenge was thus to identify economic activities that would broaden the economic base of Botswana. In this regard, the thrust of Botswana's economic policy was that of value addition to the minerals extracted in the country, as well as diversification away from diamonds into other minerals.

The minerals sector also held potential for further beneficiation of Botswana's minerals.