In the mid-1990s the UN built an airstrip in Ngara, in the far west of Tanzania, to supply refugee camps near the border with Burundi. Three decades later it has a different use. Over the past year the airstrip has welcomed about a dozen planes filled with potential investors, not aid workers. After a recent flight that The Economist joined, the group boarded a fleet of 4x4s for a drive in convoy through this undulating, verdant part of east Africa, passing farmers swinging rusty hoes like golfers warming up at the tee. After two hours the cavalcade reached its destination: Kabanga, home to one of the world’s prime untapped sources of nickel, a metal used in batteries for electric vehicles. Though geologists first discovered its potential 50 years ago, it is only now that the site may become a mine, under the majority ownership of Lifezone Metals, an American-listed firm

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