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This list of mines in Africa is subsidiary to the list of mines article and lists working, defunct and future mines on the continent and is organised by the primary country location. For practical purposes stone, marble and other quarries may be included in this list.
gold
The economy of Botswana is currently one of the world's fastest growing economies, averaging about 5% per annum over the past decade. Growth in private sector employment averaged about 10% per annum during the first 30 years of the country's independence. After a period of stagnation at the turn of the 21st century, Botswana's economy registered strong levels of growth, with GDP growth exceeding 6–7% targets. Botswana has been praised by the African Development Bank for sustaining one of the world's longest economic booms. Economic growth since the late 1960s has been on par with some of Asia's largest economies. The government has consistently maintained budget surpluses and has extensive foreign-exchange reserves.
The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial and coastal mining. It operates in 35 countries with mining taking place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Canada. It also has an artisanal mining business, Gemfair, which operates in Sierra Leone.
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth.
Alfred Beit was an Anglo-German gold and diamond magnate in South Africa, and a major donor and profiteer of infrastructure development on the African continent. He also donated much money to university education and research in several countries, and was the "silent partner" who structured the capital flight from post-Boer War South Africa to Rhodesia. Beit's assets were structured around the so-called Corner House Group, which through its holdings in various companies controlled 37 per cent of the gold produced at the Witwatersrand's goldfields in Johannesburg in 1913.
Anglo American plc is a British multinational mining company with headquarters in London, England. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40% of world output, as well as being a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore, polyhalite and steelmaking coal. The company has operations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.
The Mineral Revolution is a term used by historians to refer to the rapid industrialisation and economic changes which occurred in South Africa from the 1860s onwards. The Mineral Revolution was largely driven by the need to create a permanent workforce to work in the mining industry, and saw South Africa transformed from a patchwork of agrarian states to a unified, industrial nation. In political terms, the Mineral Revolution had a significant impact on diplomacy and military affairs. Finally, the policies and events of the Mineral Revolution had an increasingly negative impact on race relations in South Africa, and formed the basis of the apartheid system, which dominated South African society for a century. The Mineral Revolution was caused by the discovery of diamonds in Kimberly in 1867 and also by the discovery of gold in Witwatersrand in 1886. The mineral mining revolution laid the foundations of racial segregation and the control of white South Africans over black South Africans. The Mineral Revolution changed South Africa from being an agricultural society to becoming the largest gold producing country in the world.
Hans Merensky was a South African geologist, prospector, scientist, conservationist and philanthropist.
The mining industry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo produces copper, diamonds, tantalum, tin, gold, and more than 70% of global cobalt production. Minerals and petroleum are central to the DRC's economy, making up more than 95% of the value of its exports.
Asa Resources Group is a mining company based in Johannesburg and London. According to the company's website, it is the first African-owned and African-managed business to be listed in the Resources sector of the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market. Asa was founded in 1987.
Mining in South Africa was once the main driving force behind the history and development of Africa's most advanced and richest economy. Large-scale and profitable mining started with the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange River in 1867 by Erasmus Jacobs and the subsequent discovery of the Kimberley pipes a few years later. Gold rushes to Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton were precursors to the biggest discovery of all, the Main Reef/Main Reef Leader on Gerhardus Oosthuizen's farm Langlaagte, Portion C, in 1886, which kicked off the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the subsequent rapid development of the gold field there.
The Mining industry of Ghana accounts for 5% of the country's GDP and minerals make up 37% of total exports. Gold contributes over 90% of the total mineral exports. Thus, the main focus of Ghana's mining and minerals development industry remains focused on gold. Ghana is Africa's largest gold producer, producing 80.5 t in 2008. Ghana is also a major producer of bauxite, manganese and diamonds. Ghana has 20 large-scale mining companies producing gold, diamonds, bauxite and manganese; over 300 registered small scale mining groups; and 90 mine support service companies. Other mineral commodities produced in the country are natural gas, petroleum, salt, and silver.
The mining industry of Botswana has dominated the national economy of Botswana since the 1970s, being a primary sector industry. Diamond has been the leading component of the mineral sector ever since production of gems started being extracted by the mining company Debswana. Most of Botswana's diamond production is of gem quality, resulting in the country's position as the world's leading producer of diamond by value. Copper, gold, nickel, coal and soda ash production also has held significant, though smaller, roles in the economy.
The mining sector of Ivory Coast contributes to 13% of the country's exports annually and accounts for 5% of the GDP. The industry has historically centered on the extraction of gold. Although the subsoil of Ivory Coast contains many other minerals, none had been discovered in commercially exploitable amounts.
The second-largest mineral industry in the world is the mineral industry of Africa, which implies large quantities of resources due to Africa being the second largest continent, with 30.37 million square kilometres of land.With a population of 1.4 billion living there, mineral exploration and production constitute significant parts of their economies for many African countries and remain keys to economic growth. Africa is richly endowed with mineral reserves and ranks first in quantity of world reserves for bauxite, cobalt, industrial diamond, phosphate rock, platinum-group metals (PGM), vermiculite, and zirconium.
The Central African Republic's mineral resource endowment includes copper, diamond, gold, graphite, ilmenite, iron ore, kaolin, kyanite, lignite, limestone, manganese, monazite, quartz, rutile, salt, tin, and uranium. Of these commodities, only diamond and gold were produced in 2006 - subsistence farming was the mainstay of the economy.
Africa has a large quantity of natural resources, including diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum, natural gas and cocoa beans, but also tropical timber and tropical fruit.
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a blanket term for a type of subsistence mining involving a miner who may or may not be officially employed by a mining company but works independently, mining minerals using their own resources, usually by hand.
The mining industry of Guinea was developed during colonial rule. The minerals extracted consisted of iron, gold, diamond, and bauxite. Guinea ranks first in the world in bauxite reserves and 6th in the extraction of high-grade bauxite, the aluminium ore. The mining industry and exports of mining products accounted for 17% of Guinea's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010. Mining accounts for over 50% of its exports. The country accounts for 94% of Africa's mining production of bauxite. The large mineral reserve, which has mostly remained untapped, is of immense interest for international firms.
Tanzania is a land rich in minerals. Mining makes up more than 50% of the country's total exports, of which a large part comes from gold. The country has gold reserves of 10 million ounces, generating revenue of over a billion USD. Diamonds are also found in significant amounts. Since it was opened in 1940, the Williamson diamond mine has produced 19 million carats (3,800 kg) of diamonds. Gemstones, nickel, copper, uranium, kaolin, titanium, cobalt and platinum are also mined in Tanzania. Illegal mining and corruption are ongoing problems. In 2017, the government passed a series of bills aimed at increasing revenue from minerals after a scandal which caused the dismissal of the Minister for Energy and Minerals.
Simmer and Jack Mines Ltd is a South African company which was founded in 1887 by the German August Simmer and Scotsman John Jack, shortly thereafter selling the majority shareholding to Gold Fields of South Africa Ltd. The company was listed until 2013 at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.