Global
60% of Burkina Faso’s total
exports. As of July 2017,
there were 10 gold mining
operations in the country,
with another two under
construction. Exploration
is also very active, with
ongoing work by Canadian-
listed Nexus Gold, Sarama
Resources, and B2Gold;
Australian-listed Golden
Rim Resources and
Predictive Discovery; and
London-listed Centamin.
Tanzania
Exploration budgets for Africa by stage of development share, 2008–2017 (%).
Tanzania climbed two
notches to third place, from
fifth in 2016. The country’s
allocations increased 35%
to USD90.3-million, from
USD67-million the year
before, to account for 8%
of Africa’s total budget.
AngloGold Ashanti
continued to be the biggest
spender in Tanzania with
43% (or USD38.4-million)
of the country’s budget.
The number of companies
actively exploring in the
country slipped to 25, from
28 in 2016.
In the second half of
2017, the Tanzanian
government enacted new
laws and regulations to
claim a larger slice of the
commodities pie. Three
laws raised taxes on mineral
exports, mandated a
government stake in some
mining operations, and
required the construction
of local smelters to bring
the country higher up
the mining chain. The
legislation resulted in foreign
investors and miners backing
away from takeover bids
and canceling exploration
plans. A negative impact on
exploration budget allocations
to Tanzania in 2018 is
therefore anticipated. b
Source: S&P Global
Market Intelligence
[8] MINING MIRROR APRIL 2018
Exploration budgets for Africa by country, 2017
(242 companies budgeting USD1.09-billion).