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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Apr 14 2011 - 08:17:13 EDT
Sudan's gold rush lures thousands to remote areas
Thu Apr 14, 2011 8:35am GMT
* Soaring prices, tales of fortunes spur Sudan gold rush
* Prospectors risk big to hunt in barren desert
* Sudan steps up focus on gold to offset oil risk
By Deepa Babington
KHARTOUM, April 14 (Reuters) - Lured by tales of fortunes made overnight,
businessman Amir Tabidi ditched the comfort of Khartoum to spend weeks
braving blistering heat, bandits and snakes to hunt for gold in remote
Sudanese desert areas.
Camped out in the wilderness without electricity or daily showers, Tabidi
and his group found nearly 2 kilos of gold (worth nearly $94,000) in just
two weeks of hunting with metal detectors. That was enough to convince the
34-year-old to make the arduous trip two more times -- joining countless
others with similar dreams.
"Sometimes we would arrive at a place at night where there was just nothing
there," said Tabidi, who works in his family's gold jewellery business in
Khartoum.
"But by 5 a.m. you could start hearing the beep-beep of metal detectors, and
by morning the whole area would be filled with people walking around with
metal detectors. You'd say -- 'Where did all these people come from?' It was
amazing."
Tabidi is one of tens of thousands of small-scale Sudanese prospectors
undertaking hazardous expeditions across barren areas to search for gold,
drawn by tales of big finds and prices that have topped record highs this
year above $1476 an ounce.
"Now we have the so-called gold fever because everybody is searching for
gold, just like in 19th century America," Minerals Minister Abdelbagi
Gailani told Reuters.
He estimates as many 200,000 small-scale prospectors are hunting in
scattered areas in Sudan, forcing the government to consider incentives to
stop them from selling the gold abroad and push for the creation of
co-operatives to support them.
Over 50 percent of that gold is smuggled out through Sudan's porous borders
for sale in Dubai or Beirut, Gailani said.
Co-operative groups have also been set up in some states to ensure that
miners do not use child labour and make them aware of the health and
environmental risks involved, he said.
"We have to keep an eye on them, we have to group them and we have to
provide them some health services because they are using very toxic
materials like mercury," he said.
BOOMING SECTOR
Sudan has been known as a source of gold since the time of Egyptian Pharaohs
and its own ancient Nubian kingdom, but small-scale prospecting has only
boomed in recent years.
Khartoum, which for years focused on its oil reserves to generate revenues,
is also stepping up efforts to develop the gold sector in a bid to diversify
the economy and offset risk from the secession of its oil-producing south.
It has signed a string of mining deals -- as many as 128 Sudanese and
foreign companies are now involved in Sudan's gold sector -- and this year
set up a company that offers drilling, prospection and laboratory services,
Gailani said.
Metals research consultancy GFMS says Sudan produced just four tonnes of
gold in 2009, but Gailani estimates the country's output will touch 74
tonnes this year if the gold found by unregulated prospectors is included.
That would make the country the tenth-largest producer and Africa's third
largest, behind South Africa and Ghana.
Gailani predicts the so-called "artisanal" gold seekers alone will mine more
than 60 tonnes of gold this year in Sudan.
A London-based industry analyst, who declined to be named, said there had
been a material increase in gold output recently from the area in and around
Sudan, though it was unclear if production would be high as the government
estimates.
Some of the gold linked to Sudan may also have been mined in neighbouring
countries like Chad and the Central African Republic before being exported
to the Middle East via Sudanese desert routes to the north, the analyst
said.
"Sudan is a convenient export route," the analyst said.
FRUSTRATING TIMES
For some, the booming gold sector is already too crowded. Businessman Tarig
Khalil says he considered getting a concession for prospection and planned
to use satellite images to pinpoint areas that held deposits, but later
dropped the plan.
"There were just too many people involved already," he said. "We've now
shifted our scope to anything but gold."
But for most, the prospect of becoming instant millionaires in a country
where nearly half of the population lives below the poverty line, food
prices are soaring and jobs are scarce, is enough incentive to risk big in
the search for gold.
Tales abound of unprepared prospectors running out of water in the desert or
being robbed, but they are often overlooked in favour of reports like one in
the Al-Sahafah newspaper in December. That reported a man from Sudan's
north-eastern Rashaida tribe found a 60 kg rock of high-quality gold, which
he sold for a cool $1.6 million in Khartoum's gold market.
Tabidi says one of the more incredible sights he saw was of a rival
prospector paying with gold for a brand new car brought to him in the desert
with the help of GPS technology.
"People are so frustrated these days, there are fewer jobs, smaller salaries
and life is so expensive," he said.
"And then they see all these people who have made so much money by searching
for gold, so they want to go out themselves." (Editing by Jon Boyle)
C Thomson Reuters 2011 All rights reserved
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