BOL-DEBSWANA BOOST LOCAL COMPANIES
• 65 million litres of fuel delivered since August 2022 • P982 million disbursed on CEEP
The partnership agreement between Botswana Oil Limited (BOL) and Debswana Mining Company continues to gain some traction with P982 million having been reportedly spent on local companies thus far.
Last August, the two entities entered into a partnership with the aim to capacitate citizen-owned companies in the fuel supply value chain, with BOL playing a facilitatory role of assisting emerging citizen-owned fuel supply and fuel transportation entities.
As a result, it was agreed that BOL would supply Debswana’s Jwaneng and Orapa Letlhakane & Damtshaa mines (OLDM) with 500 million litres of fuel over a five-year period with the agreement worth an estimated P8 billion. As of February 2023, around 65 million litres of fuel have been delivered to Debswana.
BOL Chief Executive Officer, Meshack Tshekedi, says since taking over Debswana fuel operations, his company has been working on identifying citizen transporters to benefit from the fuel operations.
“BOL has thus far run an open tender to procure citizen transporters who would be contracted to deliver fuel to Debswana sites. The tender has been evaluated by an independent evaluator and has gone through validation stage, with award following shortly. Parallel to this process, BOL has been working on facilitatory structures to facilitate the onboarding of citizen bulk fuel transporters. This is to enable them to pick up fuel at fuel export facilities outside Botswana, further opening up more opportunities for them with other local companies. Other work has been around engaging with truck and tanker manufacturers to negotiate favourable prices for trucks and tankers, which will help our citizen transporters to acquire the requisite assets for execution of this contract,” he said.
According to Tshekedi, about ten local transport companies have benefited from delivering fuel to Debswana mines on short term contracts between August 2022 and February 2023, resulting in P92,196,354.33 being spent on these companies thus far.
“This is pending finalisation of substantive contracts mentioned, which will see about six to seven transporters contracted to deliver the fuel for the balance of the contracted five years. BOL has also led the negotiation of funding options with local funders and financiers to facilitate our contracted citizen transporters with favourable funding terms. Most importantly, BOL is working with Debswana to have a customised enterprise and supplier development programme for the citizen contractors that will ensure safe and sustainable delivery of fuel to the mines,” said Tshekedi.
The partnership will also create opportunities for support services along the oil value chain, such as trucks staging, truck stops, tyre services, wash bays, truck service, maintenance jobs and other related support activities for Batswana.
“The planned development of the truck stops, which will have facilities such as wash bays, maintenance bays, and bulk vehicle operator rest rooms is ongoing, having identified land for the development of the Orapa, Letlhakane and Damtshaa Mines (OLDM) facility. The parties are currently pursuing the allocation of land in the Jwaneng Area for that mine’s facility. Other activities of truck stop scope finalisation and validation are ongoing prior to approval for contractor procurement stage to begin,” said Tshekedi.
The programme is part of Debswana’s Citizen Economic Empowerment Programme, which aims to create and deliver shared citizen spend value of P20 billion and 20 000 jobs by 2024. On an annual basis, Debswana consumes approximately 100 million litres of fuel and in the past this has been done by foreign-owned companies.