South Africa’s state-owned mining company – African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC) – announced that it is actively seeking partnerships with South Sudanese mining companies during the “Africa Energy and Mining Business Forum” at South Sudan Oil & Power 2023 (https://apo-opa.info/3NdA8y9) on Friday.

“Our approach is public-private partnerships – that is the level of cooperation we are looking to pursue,” said Moroasereme Ntsoane, General Manager of Corporate Strategy & Planning for AEMFC. “Any entity outside of that collaboration can also approach AEMFC, or any company in the mining space in South Africa, and pursue a partnership. We believe in partnerships not only at a company-to-company level, but also with the local communities in which mining activities actually take place.”

South Africa is home to the continent’s largest and most sophisticated mining industry, as well as the largest known global reserves of Platinum-group metals, manganese, chromite and gold. Meanwhile, South Sudan is in the early stages of building its mining sector, hoping to leverage rising demand for critical and industrial minerals to harness estimated domestic reserves of copper, gold, diamonds and limestone.

“What we are looking to do with our partners in South Sudan is not only the valuation of minerals, but also adopting a much broader collaborative approach, where we look at issues around capacity building, making key improvements to the regulatory environment, using our experience in mining and making sure that we collaborate with our partners here to render an attractive environment for investors,” continued Ntsoane. “It’s no longer about coming in and purely digging minerals out of the ground.” 

In a presentation preceding the Africa Energy and Mining Business Forum, South Africa’s Council for Geoscience expressed strong interest in geothermal exploration activities in the East African region, particularly as South Sudan neighbors the East African Rift System that is estimated to hold over 10,000 MW of geothermal potential.