by The Fikiria Desk | Aug 5, 2019 | Property
A mineral deposit is worth nothing until it is connected. The value of potash in the ground is realised only through a chain of built things — pits, plant, roads, water, power and a port able to load bulk ships. The business case for Colluli is, in large part, a...
by The Fikiria Desk | Aug 5, 2019 | Consumers
For a fertiliser, the customer is a farmer, and the farmer’s question is simple: does this input arrive, does it work, and can it be afforded. A mining announcement on the Red Sea coast is a long way from that farmer’s field, but every producing mine is...
by The Fikiria Desk | Aug 5, 2019 | Lifestyle
Large resource projects are usually described in tonnes and dollars, yet their most visible effect is often on a place — the town that gains a road, the coast that gains traffic, the daily rhythm of people who live nearby. Before Colluli is a fertiliser story, it is a...
by The Fikiria Desk | Aug 5, 2019 | Farming
African agriculture runs on a paradox. The continent holds a large share of the world’s uncultivated arable land, yet it imports much of the fertiliser its farmers need and uses less of it per hectare than almost anywhere else. Potash — the potassium in the trio...
by The Fikiria Desk | Aug 5, 2019 | Economics
The standard account of Eritrea’s economy treats it as closed, thinly banked and hard to enter. That reputation is not wrong, but it can hide a simpler fact: closed markets are also uncontested ones, and the firms that establish position before an anchor project...