Tambao is a Manganese deposit and potential mine site in the

Oudalan Province Oudalan is one of the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso, located in its Sahel Region. Its capital is Gorom-Gorom. The 2019 census reported 158,146 people living in the province. Departments The province is divided into 5 departments. See also *Re ...

, located in the

Sahel Region Sahel is one of Burkina Faso's 13 administrative regions. It was created on 2 July 2001. The region's capital is Dori. Four provinces make up the region— Oudalan, Séno, Soum, and Yagha. As of 2019, the population of the region was 1,094, ...

, which the far northeastern part of

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to ...

. Tambao has been estimated, when exploited, to be one of the largest deposits in the region. Its development, a major priority of the Burkinabe state, has been an on and off project since the 1990s. Barely served by roads or other infrastructure, the Tambao reserves are some north of

Kaya Kaya may refer to: People *Kaya (given name) *Kaya (surname) Places *Kaya, Burkina Faso, a town in Burkina Faso, capital of the department *Kaya Airport, serving the town * Kaya Department, a department or commune of Sanmatenga Province in centr ...

and northeast of the capital, namely

Ouagadougou Ouagadougou ( , , ) is the capital and largest city of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural, and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 2,415,266 in 2019. The city's ...

. The Tambao Airport has been recently built to serve the deposit and the corresponding villages.

Industry

Manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

is mined here. For at least two decades it has been considered the most potentially lucrative mining resource in Burkina, and is believed the region's largest Manganese deposit, estimated at 20 million tonnes at %52 to %53 Manganese to ore, making it one of the

cryptomelane Cryptomelane is a potassium manganese oxide mineral with formula K(Mn4+,Mn2+)8O16. In 1942 the name ''cryptomelane'' was proposed as part of an effort to sort out the manganese oxide minerals referred to as ''psilomelane''. Cryptomelane was ident ...

-richest ore resources in the world.BURKINA FASO : LE MANGANÈSE DE TAMBAO ATTISE LES CONVOITISES
Dossier specicial du ''Africa Mining Intelligence'', September 2011. The site's inaccessibility and lack of infrastructure have prevented wide scale exploitation. Most recently, in 2010, mining companies refused bid on construction of the necessary infrastructure for mining unless the government granted them mining concessions in the area. In 1993 InterStar Mining carried out 6 months of operations here, but were plagued by lack of supportive resources. Large scale exploitation was only again attempted by the Fompex consortium in 2004 and was quickly halted. Apart from total lack of operations infrastructure (power, water, construction or employment base) the biggest hurdle to commercial exploitation of the Tambao reserves is the lack of an all weather roadway capable of supporting the transport fleet needed to move ore the to

, the nearest city connected to the Burkinabe road network. In 2010, the Burkinabe government carried out talks with investors from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

aimed at building a 250 km railway line from Tambao to Kaya.Un chemin de fer pour Tambao au Burkina
Africa Mining Intelligence N°224, 2010-04-07. Later that year, the Burkinabe government tendered a series of openings for mining operations in Tambao, with Wadi Al Rawda Industrial Investments one early candidate thought likely to gain at least some concession. In 2010 two consortia emerged offering to develop an integrated mining and rail system which, in some proposals, would not only mine and process ore, but build longer rail lines to feed into the Ivorian rail network for export at the port of

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, making it the sixth most populous city p ...

. Major contenders were a Singaporean/Indian joint venture, the Nice Group company, and a tie up of the Japanese firm Mitsui Rail Capital and Brazilian mining giant Vale S.A.Vale-Mitsui cible le manganèse de Tambao
Africa Mining Intelligence N°236, 2010-10-20.

Transport

An extension of the Abidjan-Niger Railway was approved in 2014 and service was expected to begin by the end of 2016.Pan African Minerals receives permission from Burkina Faso for Tambao manganese project, 19 May 2014, http://www.mining-technology.com/news/newspan-african-minerals-receives-permission-from-burkina-faso-for-tambao-manganese-project-4270134 The Tambao Airport serves the deposit and corresponding villages.

References

www.tambao.co.uk Informative website

External links

Tambao Informative Site

UN Map
{{Authority control Mines in Burkina Faso