Letlhakane Uranium in Botswana is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week
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Letlhakane Uranium in Botswana is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week
Lotus Resources’ Botswana exploration is drawing attention.
By Leon Louw founder of WhyAfrica and editor of the WhyAfrica magazine.
Botswana boasts good infrastructure and a diverse geological landscape offering a range of natural resources for the global market.
The country, known mostly for its diamond, copper, nickel, gold, coal and uranium resources continue attracting exploration outfits.
WhyAfrica has been following Lotus Resources’ Letlhakane uranium project closely over the last year. WhyAfrica visited Lotus’ other uranium project, Kayelekera in Malawi earlier this year as part of the 2024 WhyAfrica Road Trip.
Letlhakane Uranium in Botswana is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week
Letlhakane is close to high quality infrastructure with a sealed road, rail line and power line running past the license area. The growing city of Francistown is within 50km of Letlhakane.
Lotus has recently updated Letlhakane’s mineral resource model to a reasonable prospects of eventual economic extraction (RPEEE) basis, and is progressing beneficiation test work, geometallurgical modelling and a processing option study.
A 180-hole infill drilling programme has confirmed continuity and grade of the resource.
In September 2024, Lotus completed a Scoping Study, which demonstrated Letlhakane can support ~3Mlbpa over an extended, 15-year life-of-mine (LoM) with flexibility to adjust production with uranium price fluctuations.
Towards the end of last year, Lotus announced that it had increased its Indicated Mineral Resources by 65% at Letlhakane, which further underlines its potential as a large-scale, standalone uranium development project.
Botswana’s economy expected to grow
Botswana’s economy is expected to grow 3% to 4% in 2025 after a contraction last year.
“The domestic economy is anticipated to rebound in 2025 to a growth of 3-4%, reflecting a combination of base effects, the global recovery in the major diamond export markets and continued growth in the non-mining sector,” director of macroeconomic policy in the finance ministry, Walter Matekane, said recently.
Botswana’s economy is largely dependent on the export of diamonds, and declining earnings from the precious stone have limited government spending.
Diamond sales remained weak throughout 2024 and Debswana, a joint venture between Botswana and De Beers, lowered its production guidance for last year by about 6 million carats to 17.9 million carats.
Letlhakane Uranium in Botswana is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week
