Rwanda: Mineral Industry Overview

Rwanda was not a globally significant consumer of minerals. In 2009, however, Rwanda’s share of the world’s tantalum mine production amounted to about 9%, and tungsten, 1%. In 2008 (the latest year for which data were available), the mining and quarrying sector accounted for about 1% of the gross domestic product. About 50,000 Rwandans were employed in the mining sector in 2007. Rwanda’s exports of columbite-tantalite, cassiterite (tin ore), and wolframite (tungsten ore) were from domestic mining operations and reexports from mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo [Congo (Kinshasa)] (Banque Nationale du Rwanda, 2009; Garrett and Mitchell, 2009; Papp, 2010; Shedd, 2010).

Production
In 2009, peat production increased by an estimated 300%, and natural gas, by about 100%. Production of tungsten decreased by an estimated 14% in 2009, and niobium (columbium), tantalum, and tin, by an estimated 13% each.
Structure of the Mineral Industry
The state-owned Régie d’Exploitation et de Développement des Mines (REDEMI) produced columbite-tantalite, cassiterite (tin ore), and wolframite (tungsten ore); privately owned companies, cooperatives, and artisanal miners also produced these mineral commodities. In 2006, the Government privatized 20 of REDEMI’s concessions. The privately owned Cimenterie du Rwanda (Cimerwa) was the country’s only cement producer.
Gold
TransAfrika Resources Ltd. of Mauritius engaged in a drilling program at its Byumba concession in the Gicumbi District from October 2008 to September 2009. In October 2009, Transafrika started work on a resource estimate at Byumba. Kivu Gold Corp. of Canada also engaged in gold exploration. Rogi Mining Ltd. of Russia held the Miyove concession.
Niobium (Columbium) and Tantalum
Columbite-tantalite was mined in the Gatsibo and the Kamonyi Districts by companies that included Centrale Multi-Services SARL (CMS), Eurotrade International S.A., Gatumba Mining Concessions Ltd. (GMC), Munsad Minerals, and Natural Resources Development Rwanda Ltd. (NRD) of Germany. CMS produced at the rate of 180 metric tons per year (t/yr) of columbite-tantalite in 2009. GMC planned to spend $2.5 million on building 10 new small processing plants by late 2014 (Holland, 2009; Centrale Multi-Services SARL, 2010).
Tin
Cassiterite was mined in 26 of Rwanda’s 30 districts. CMS produced cassiterite at the rate of 300 t/yr in 2009 compared with 174 t/yr in 2007. In 2009, NRD produced cassiterite at Ntemba at the rate of nearly 220 t/yr compared with 56 t/yr in 2007. NRD planned to increase production to about 430 t/yr. GMC produced cassiterite at Gatumba at the rate of 60 t/yr in 2009 compared with 10 t/yr in 2007. The company was considering the development of medium-scale cassiterite and columbite-tantalite mines at Gatumba that would increase output to between 1,200 and 2,400 t/yr of cassiterite. Columbite-tantalite prices were $38 per pound in late November 2009; GMC’s expansion depended on prices increasing to $60 per pound (Garrett and Mitchell, 2009; Holland, 2009; New Times, 2009; Centrale Multi-Services SARL, 2010).
Umlhaba Mining of South Africa was engaged in a joint venture with the Government to revamp the Rutongo Mines in Rulindo District. The cost of the project was estimated to be about $5 million (Karuhanga, 2009).
Tungsten
Privately owned companies, such as Africa Primary Tungsten SARL, CMS, Eurotrade International S.A., Pyramid International, Rwanda Allied Partners, and Wolfram Bergbau- und Hütten GmbH Nfg of Austria, accounted for about 50% of Rwanda’s wolframite production in 2007; cooperatives, nearly 40%; and artisanal miners, about 10%. In 2009, CMS produced about 300 t/yr of wolframite (Centrale Multi-Services SARL, 2010; Transafrika Resources Ltd., 2010).
Cement
Rwanda imported 116,000 t of cement in 2008; Ciments du Rwanda Ltd. (Cimerwa) [Rwanda Investment Group S.A. (RIG), 90%] was unable to meet domestic demand in spite of producing at about its full capacity of 100,000 t/yr. Cimerwa planned to build a new plant with a capacity of 600,000 t/yr at a cost of $70 million. In June 2009, Cimerwa was trying to secure financing for the project (Majyambere, 2009).
Natural Gas
State-owned company Kibuye Power 1 Ltd. extracted natural gas from Lake Kivu; the company’s 2-megawatt (MW)-capacity gas-fired power station produced electricity for the local power grid. Starting in December 2009, RIG planned to supply a new gas-fired power station with an initial capacity of 3.6 MW using natural gas from beneath Lake Kivu (Africa Energy Intelligence, 2009).
In March 2009, CountourGlobal LLC of the United States signed an agreement with the Government to extract natural gas from Lake Kivu and to build a new gas-fired power station. In the first phase of the project, the plant was expected to have a capacity of 25 MW starting in 2010; full capacity of 100 MW would be reached by 2012. The estimated cost of the project was $325 million (African Power Mining & Oil Review, 2009).
Peat
In 2008, Peat Energy Co. (a subsidiary of RIG) started peat production at Gishoma in Rusizi District. By October 2009, production amounted to 20,000 t. Cimerwa planned to use peat as a source of energy; the company planned to replace about 70% of its fuel oil consumption with peat. RIG also planned to develop the Gihitasi and the Masya peat deposits (Gahigi, 2009).
Petroleum
At the end of 2009, Vangold Resources Ltd. of Canada spun off its concession in Lake Kivu and southwest Rwanda to a new company called Vanoil Energy Ltd. of Canada. Vanoil planned to complete a seismic survey at Lake Kivu in the third quarter of 2010.
Source: Mineral Yearbook by United States Geological Survey

Forest policies in Rwanda, United States and Gambia win UN-backed awards

21 September 2011 – Rwanda today won a United Nations-backed gold award for its forest promotion policies, an event that former United States track and field star Carl Lewis, himself a nine-time Olympic gold winner and now UN Goodwill Ambassador, called more important than the many medals he has garnered.
Policies from the United States and Gambia were runners-up, winning joint silvers in the Future Policy Award announced at UN Headquarters in New York by the World Future Council (WFC), a group of 50 respected personalities from all five continents representing governments, parliaments, the arts, civil society, science and business world.
The annual awards celebrate policies that create better living conditions for current and future generations, and seek to raise global awareness and speed up action towards just, sustainable and peaceful societies. This year’s topic was forests, with 16 entries from 20 countries, and the announcements took place under the sponsorship of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“Despite the genocide and continuing population and land pressures, Rwanda is one of only three countries in Central and Western Africa to achieve a major reversal in the trend of declining forest cover and is on course to achieving its goal of forest cover of 30 per cent of total land area by the year 2020,” WFC Director Alexandra Wandel said in announcing the gold medal for the country’s national forest policy, initiated in 2004.
“The Government of Rwanda has taken a lead in developing visionary forest policy but also bio-diversity conservation, ecotourism, green jobs.”
Forest cover has increased by 37 per cent since 1990, massive reforestation and planting that promote indigenous species and involve the local population have been undertaken, and new measures such as agro-forestry and education have been implemented.
“I kind of know about awards, I’ve had a few myself and I think it’s much more important that we talk about this award because it affects everyone,” said Mr. Lewis, a Goodwill Ambassador for FAO who in his sporting career won 10 Olympic medals, nine of them gold, and 10 World Championships medals, eight of them gold.
“It talks about reforestation and overcoming hunger. So I’m delighted to make the Future Policy Award more well-known and to carry out some of the inspiriting energy of the Olympic spirit that I’ve hade in the past. So I hope that all of you can be inspired to do what you can in your communities and in your forests to make your worlds a better place.”
One silver award went to the US Lacey Act amendment of 2008 which prohibits all trade in wood and plant products that are knowingly illegally sourced from a US state or any foreign country, forcing importers to take responsibility for their wood products.
The second silver went to Gambia's Community Forestry Policy, put in place with FAO support, the first in Africa to provide local populations with secure and permanent forest ownership rights.
Transferring forest tenure from state ownership to management by local communities enables them to reduce illegal logging and forest fires, slow desertification and benefit from the forest products.
“The success of the Gambia's Community Forest Policy proves that even in the world's poorest countries, with the right policies and legal framework in place, rural populations can benefit economically from forests and significantly improve their food security and environment,” FAO's Assistant Director-General for Forestry Eduardo Rojas-Briales said of the tiny West African country.
The Director of the Secretariat of the UN Forum on Forests, Jan McAlpine, noted that the awards come “at a really critical time” because of the downturn in the economy, the needs of dealing with development goals and the complexity of dealing with natural resources and adverse impact of unsustainable exploitation on climate, biodiversity and livelihoods.
 Source :www.un.org