MINING IN EAST AFRICA

After studying this unit, you will be able to:

 (a)  understand what a mineral is and why some minerals are valuable

(b) locate the main mining centres on the map of East Africa.

(c)  know the main minerals occurring in East Africa and their amounts

(d) understand the use of mineral resources in the development of any two industries in Uganda

(e) understand the methods of mining used for different minerals and their problems.

(f) draw flow diagrams to show the main stages and methods of mining.

(g) recognize types and consequences of mining on photographs.

(h) understand the effects of mining on the environment.

(I) appreciate the positive and negative contribution of mineral resources to development

(j) appreciate that the benefits of mining often go mainly to overseas companies or a local elite only

(k) understand the physical and economic problems facing mining.

(l) appreciate the need for strict laws to control mining physically and economically

 Keywords

• artisanal mining
• flow diagram  
• mining
• mineral resources
• minerals
• pipeline
• oil extraction
• open cast mining
• processing
• refining
• underground mining

3.1 Minerals and mining

In Senior One you found out about the structure of the earth. The top layer or crust is made of rocks. Rocks are the solid, hard parts of the earth. The rocks are made up of combinations of chemicals or elements which are called minerals. Some of these minerals are useful for making things. Many of the minerals contain metals.

Location of minerals in East Africa

The map in Figure 3.1 shows where the major minerals in East Africa are found.

Figure 3.1: Distribution of mining areas in East Africa

From this, you noted that some of the important minerals in East Africa include copper, gold, iron, diamonds, coal and petroleum, as well as limestone.

Minerals can be divided into three kinds:

Metallic minerals are those which contain metals like iron or copper. The rocks containing these minerals are called ores and usually contain only small amounts of the valuable metal. They have to be processed or smelted to extract or separate out the valuable metal.

Non – metallic minerals are those which contain other useful chemicals or substances which are not metals. These include; limestone, which contains chemicals used in making cement, and rocks used in constructing roads and buildings. Mining for non – metallic minerals usually means digging out large lumps of rock and is often called quarrying.

Fuel minerals are rocks which contain substances useful as fuels to make or generate energy, like electricity or power for machines. These come from places in the rocks where a large amount of carbon from dead plants and animals has been trapped in the rocks in the far past. These include coal and oil. Oil is liquid and pumped out of the ground, not dug out like other minerals.

 3.3 Factors affecting mining

Many minerals exist in East Africa. However, mining is done in few places. In some cases, the mining activities are no longer carried out. What do you think are the reasons for this?

In this Activity you have been able to find out that not all minerals can be mined. The reasons include the quality available and the cost that may be involved to extract the mineral. It is, therefore, important to determine these factors before mining begins.

3.3 Types of mining

There are three types of mining:

Open cast mining is done when the minerals are on or near the surface. The rocks are dug out from the ground directly by machines or even by hand.

Underground mining is done when the rocks containing the minerals are deep under the ground and have to be extracted or taken out by digging shafts and tunnels in the ground.

Extraction of oil is different because it is liquid. Holes are drilled into the ground to find the oil. Pipes are then put into the holes and the oil is pumped out.

You will now look at each of these types of mining to discover the advantages and problems of each.

Open cast mining

Open cast mining or quarrying in East Africa is most commonly used for digging rocks for road construction or buildings. The rocks for road construction are then crushed into pieces by hand or machine and spread on the roads as gravel. Some of the largest open cast mining is for limestone which is used in making cement. This is linked to the cement factory at Tororo and another at Kasese. For Tororo, a large amount of limestone now comes from Karamoja.

There is also some open cast mining for diamonds in Tanzania.

Figure 3.2: Quarrying in Uganda

Figure 3.3: Loading a truck at a quarry near Kasese, Uganda

Figure 3.4: Crushing stone by hand for construction aggregates

Artisanal mining

Another form of open cast mining is called artisanal mining. This is very small scale mining by individuals or small companies. In Uganda there is a lot of small scale artisanal mining for gold. This is shown in the following pictures in Figures 3.5 to Figure 3.8. Which show artisanal gold mining in Uganda?

Some of the gold is found in solid rock and this has to be broken or ground into pieces as shown in Figure 3.6.

Sometimes they also have to dig tunnels deep under the ground to get the rocks out as in Figure 3.8. The artisanal miners are not trained so some tunnels have collapsed, burying the miners. The soil or rock only contains a tiny amount of gold – much less than 1 %; sometimes none at all.

The miners then have to wash or pan the soil in water using mercury as shown in Figure 3.7. Any gold floats to the top. They may have to wash tons of soil to obtain a few grains of gold. It is very hard work.

 The specks or very small pieces of gold are then collected and sold to a dealer. There may be only a few grams of gold or even nothing at all. The dealer then takes the gold to town and sells it at a much higher price to another trader who in turn sells it at an even higher a price to an exporter.

Figure 3.5: Artisanal mining collecting water and sediment containing gold from a river in Bugiri, eastern Uganda

Figure 3.6: Digging for rocks in artisanal mining. Women are particularly involved

Figure 3.7: Panning the rocks or crushed material to look for gold at Bugiri, Uganda

Figure 3.8: Digging for rocks containing gold in underground pits at Bugiri, Uganda

Although this type of mining is not easy, hundreds come to the mining sites where they know gold is, hoping to find some. Usually they are unemployed people or just people hoping gold will make them rich. Occasionally some will be lucky and find a lot of gold. They continue because it does give them some money.

In some areas, however, the government has decided to give licenses to some people or overseas companies to mine gold with machinery and modern methods. The companies then pay tax to the government. However, sometimes officials are bribed to give them licenses. The artisanal miners are then chased away.

In some cases, the artisanal miners have been able to join together and form a company to continue mining, but many artisanal miners have lost their income.

Underground mining

Underground mining in East Africa is not well developed although some gold is mined underground in Tanzania. In Uganda the largest underground mine was the mining of copper at Kilembe, but this was closed due to various problems. A proposal to re- open the mine is still being considered.

Figure 3.9: Entrance to Kilembe mine

Figure 3.10: Miners drilling the rocks before laying an explosive

Figure 3.11: A railway truck transporting the minerals from a Tunnel to the surface

Problems of mining

Problems of Kilembe Mines

Kilembe Mines was started by two Canadian companies and in 1975 it was sold to the Uganda government when the government under Amin made all production difficult. The government found it hard and expensive to run and it was closed in 1982. When there were also security problems in Uganda. The railway to Kampala had also been closed and the metal rails had been stolen.

It remained closed until 2013, when a company from China agreed to reopen it and build a new smelter at Kilembe itself. They estimated it would cost them 135 million USS or 432 trillion Uganda shillings

It was hoped to start mining by 2016 but this did not happen, partly because the price of copper went down and partly due to flooding by the river (River Nyamwamba) which runs through Kilembe valley two other problems are complaints from the workers that their working conditions are poor and unsafe, and their wages are too low. There were also problems when the waste from the mine was leaking into the river and causing pollution.

Find out if the mine has been re – opened yet. You can use the internet or other sources.

3.4 Extraction of oil

In 2006, Uganda found a third type of mineral: a fuel mineral – oil. Deposits of oil were found underground in the Lake Albert Rift Valley region, known as the Albertine Graben. There are many stages in extracting oil.

The first stage is exploration. Companies have to drill into the rocks to find out exactly where the oil is, and if there is enough to spend the money to extract it. Where it is thought that there is enough of under the ground, an oil rig is built (See Figure 3.15) this contains a drill to drill into the rocks.

Figure 3.12: An oil ridge near Lake Albert in Uganda

The next stage is drilling and pumping. Another drill is put into the ground containing a pump which pumps the oil out of the ground. This is shown on Figures 3.13 and 3.14. A large hole is drilled into the rocks protected by a steel tube and a pump is lowered down the hole. The oil is found in a layer of rocks called oil sand. When the pump reaches this layer, the oil can be pumped to the surface or it may flow naturally due to the pressure of the rocks above.

Figure 3.13: Crude oil extraction from underground

Figure 3.14: The pumps on the surface

Processing and sale of oil

When oil comes out of the ground, it is called crude oil. This cannot be used directly in the form it comes out of the ground. It needs to be refined or purified into forms which can be used in machinery or vehicles. This means Uganda can refine the oil near the oil field or elsewhere in Uganda or send it along a pipeline to a port and export it overseas.

Both methods are very expensive and Uganda could not afford to finance the building of either a refinery or a pipeline. So there have been many negotiations with overseas companies, especially from China, to give loans and help to build the pipeline.

Another problem with a refinery or pipeline is that they both need land. A refinery needs a big area of land. Even a pipeline needs land to be cleared on either side, as Figure 3.15 shows. This means taking people’s land and compensating them. There have been many problems with this. The following newspaper article with a photo and map shows the problems.

Figure 3.15: Laying the pipeline.

Proposed oil pipelines

Figure 3.16: A sketch of the proposed route of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP)

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline ( EACOP) will be the world’s longest heated pipeline. It needs to be heated as the oil is thick and will not flow easily. It will transport 216,000 barrels of oil per day to the international port in Tanzania for export.

Construction of the EACOP is likely to displace at least 400 households in nine districts of Uganda.

The 1,445 Kilometer – long pipeline will also economically displace a total of 3,000 households in Hoima, Kakumiro, Kyankwanzi, Mubende, Gomba, Sembabule, Lwengo, Rakai and Kyotera.

Some of the affected persons will temporarily or permanently lose their land to the development. The report notes that compensation of the affected persons will cause arguments as people try to ask for maximum compensation.

The construction will need many skilled workers and over 20 unskilled workers, and will cost 3.5 billion US dollars

Another danger with oil is that it can pollute the land by spilling out, either where it is pumped or along the pipeline, if the pipeline leaks or breaks. Figure 3.17 shows an area of Nigeria which has been completely spoilt by oil. In this area the people have not benefitted from the oil at all. The money for the oil has been paid to the government and the people themselves have received very little, and yet their land has been destroyed by pollution.

Figure 3.17: Oil spills in Nigeria

Who benefits from minerals?

One important thing with minerals, as this example shows, is to ask who benefits from the minerals.

Since mining is very expensive, it is mainly done by overseas companies or by getting loans from overseas. This may mean that most of the profits go overseas.

Under the laws given to Uganda by the British, which we still follow, all minerals under the ground are owned by the government, not the people who own the land. A company only has to pay the landowners for the right to use their land to look for or dig for minerals. But they pay the government for the minerals. This system of government ownership means that the money from minerals is shared by everyone in the country, not just given to the lucky people who have minerals under their land.

The overseas companies pay taxes to the government. Land owners, therefore, only benefit if the government gives them a share of what the company pays in taxes, and they do not always give them a big share. You will often read about arguments between the companies and the government about how much tax they should pay.

The government then decides how to use the money from the taxes. They may use it to benefit everyone by paying for education or health services, or pay workers higher salaries.

Because of these problems, in some countries which have minerals like oil, only a few rich people or the overseas companies benefit and those who own the land where the minerals are found may remain poor. That is why some people say that oil can be a curse as well as a blessing.

Unit Summary

In this unit, you have learnt that:

• mining is extracting or digging rocks containing valuable minerals from the ground . Only some minerals are valuable, especially those containing metals or fuels.
• there are three methods of mining: open cast mining, including quarrying and artisanal mining; underground mining and the extraction of oil by pumping.
• each type of mining has advantages as well as problems and dangers.
• the minerals are owned by the government so the landowners only benefit from the companies exploring on the land.

the government benefits from taxes which they may use to benefit everyone. there are