Africa Energy

Industrial action has become an annual event for a number of South African sectors, leading to what is referred to as “strike season” during the second and third quarters of the year. In the mining sector, particularly in the platinum industry, the last couple of years have seen an escalation in terms of the size and scope of labour unrest, which could have significant...

For over a century, up until the fall of apartheid, the entirety of South Africa’s mining sector was controlled by a small selection of diversified conglomerates, each governed by a group financing model. New, foreign or specialised participation in the sector was a rarity, as the incumbent mining finance houses held titles and rights over unexploited assets.

It seems that every year in South Africa, newspaper headlines are filled with a pending shift in policy direction for the mining sector, but rarely with any results. In 2012 fears were of a populist-driven move towards resource nationalisation, which was subsequently quashed by President Jacob Zuma’s administration, while 2013 saw concerns over a new resources tax.

South Africa’s mining industry is the fifth largest in the world and the country has around 80% of global platinum reserves, 11% of gold reserves, and some of the largest supplies of chrome ore and manganese. The sector’s contribution to GDP has, however, been on a steady decline, falling to just under 5% in 2013 from 11% two decades earlier. Reversing this trend is a top...

With some of the largest reserves of natural gas on the continent and a robust long-term upstream outlook, Egypt’s natural gas industry has made a significant turnaround by switching from exporting to importing. In the first decade of this century, Egypt went about exploiting its gas resource with great success, doubling production between 2000 and 2006. However, after a...

Thanks to their lengthy development cycles, Egypt’s oil and gas fields have continued to attract foreign investment steadily over the past three years, in spite of the broader instability in the country. The reserves remain extensive enough to ensure continued interest in them for years to come. Nevertheless, there has been a plateau in production levels and, due to...