2018 was seen as quite a volatile year by many Industries, with the mining industry being no exception. Countries like South Africa, Nigeria and Angola struggled due to volatile environments around their large revenue generating industries. For some economies in Africa, there was substantial growth, more than 5% for countries such as Burkina Faso and Senegal. With 2019 well on its way, we can have a look at what the global and local expectations will be for the exploration sector in Africa.
Expectations of growth for economies in Sub-Saharan Africa are set around 3.4% for 2019. There is a large increase in the amount of exploration activity in Africa as well as in Latin America, and this will trigger some large, game-changing discoveries over the next 2 years. Lithium, Cobalt, Zinc, Copper, and Gold will continue to be a large focus for exploration companies and the largest budgets will be allocated to these commodities in the year to come. With that, we have seen numerous companies access large amounts of historical data. The historical data has been re-analysed and interpreted and displayed properly, enabling operations to have a more accurate representation of their ore bodies. The use of the latest technology, such as Micromine, has enabled operations to better understand their resource, proving that valuable information can still be acquired from historical data.
2018 was a tough year for the smaller exploration companies and industry. For 2019 to be a better year for the industry as a whole, there will need to be a good rise in commodity prices. Threatening this will be the trade tensions between the USA and China. At risk of negative growth due to political uncertainty is South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria, and Mozambique, who will all be holding Elections throughout the year, fuelling economic instability and unrest in these regions.
