By Kingsley Jassi:
The Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC) estimates Malawi’s market value of titanium is at $12 trillion, wooing investors to exploit the reserves.
MITC Director General Kruger Phiri told some Chinese investors on Friday that an estimation by MITC shows that Malawi titanium reserves can satisfy the global market demand and become the largest producer if required investments were made.
He said their calculations were based on the prevailing market prices and available official reserves figures, saying the booming aerospace and aviation industries offer a big opportunity for Malawi to position well and become a strategic resource country.
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“There is no way this country should be poor with all these resources. What we need is to invest in mining these resources,” said the MITC director general.
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Director of Geology, Stanley Nyama, could neither dismiss the estimated value nor confirm but said the titanium reserves that were discovered are abundant and were yet to be quantified in monetary value by the department.
“The potential is there but there is a need for further studies to ascertain the value. Right now, we can say for certain on how many deposits we have on the Kasiya mine because the company there did the studies but for the other sites, we can only speculate for now,” he said.
He said the coming in of new technologies and innovations had boosted the demand for titanium, leading to more interest to mine the resource globally.
The Kasiya project is expected to generate annual revenue in excess of $645 million, a significant boost to the country’s forex generation.
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Currently, the advanced titanium mining project is Kasiya Rutile whose reserves are estimated at around 18 million metric tonnes and is the world’s largest known reserves.
The mine is being developed by Sovereign Metals and was joined by one of the world’s largest mineral resource companies, Rio Tinto, which bought 19.9 percent of shares.
Mining expert Grain Malunga, who is a former Mining minister, said it is difficult to estimate the value of titanium at the moment as most exploration licence holders have not completed work and are just holding their licences.
Malunga said while the country has abundant reserves, there is a need to do economic studies to establish the cost of extraction and their grade to determine their true market value, taking into account price fluctuation.
Titanium is in the group of strongest metals in existence, which are resistant to corrosion and heat and are used in aerospace, medical industry, construction and aviation sector, among others.
According to market intelligence firm SkyQuest, the global titanium market value is expected to reach $51 billion by 2031, and the Asian Pacific region dominates production, accounting for 44.6 percent.
However, MITC looks at Malawi as the next significant country if the available reserves can be exploited.
