𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐔𝐏𝐔𝐋𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐋-𝐓𝐎-𝐋𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐃 𝐀𝐌𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

Government owned coal mining company Morupule is committed to supporting Botswana ‘s coal to liquid ambition, a multi billion pula project that would see Botswana produce fuel from its abundant coal reserves and unlock thousands of jobs and value chain opportunities along the way.

This commitment has been reiterated by Morupule Coal Mine General Manager Mr Edwin Elias in a number of media engagements recently.

“There is Coal to gas aswell, this is a high capital intensive project, we are ready as Morupule Coal Mine to ramp up production and deliver the coal for these projects, in our new strategy that is currently being finalised we intend to produce 10 million tons of coal per annum by 2027”

Currently Morupule Coal Mine is inthe process of stockpiling coal from its Motheo open cast mine which will see MCM produce 4.2 million tonnes of coal per annum from the current 2.8 million, however Mr Elias says a strategy is currently developed that will see Morupule ramp up its production to 10 million tons per annum by 2027.

Through the Coal Road Map Study conducted by Government in 2011, one of the options available to monetise Botswana coal was through exploitation of her vast coal reserves and conversion to some of the coal to petroleum products, among other project outputs.

The country imports most of its petroleum products from/through South Africa to satisfy its 1.2 billion litres per annum consumption.

The Coal-to-liquid project is a private sector-led initiative facilitated by Botswana Oil Limited’s (BOL). BOL is currently engaging Technical Advisory Services in the development of a framework in which the private sector will jump in under a Public Private Partnership or a wholly private arrangement in which government would remain a facilitator and regulator.