Mining expo focuses on expansion opportunities

The 11th edition of the Mining Expo & Conference 2024 is underway in Windhoek, bringing together industry experts in the mining sector. Speaking at the event, Zebra Kasete, Vice President of the Chamber of Mines and Managing Director of Dundee Precious Metals in Tsumeb, highlighted that the surge in the uranium sub-sector is driving expansion opportunities in the mining industry.

During the opening of the expo on Wednesday, Minister of Mines and Energy Tom Alweendo revealed that the number of applications for exploration licenses has increased significantly. By December 2023, over 600 new applications had been recorded, with an additional 400 received since January this year.

The Namibia Press Agency further quotes Alweendo as saying, “Given this high volume of applications, it is no surprise that it is taking a while for us to finalise the evaluation of all the applications in a timely manner. It is not uncommon for an application to take more than a year before it is evaluated. We have also discovered that most of the applicants that have been awarded exploration licenses do turn out not to have the requisite capabilities to carry out exploration activities as per their agreed exploration work programmes,” Alweendo said.

According to Alweendo, the ministry’s evaluation process is not rigorous enough to only accept applications that have demonstrated the capability to carry out exploration.

“We have recently therefore taken a decision to only award exploration licenses to applicants that have met the minimum exploration work program, as determined by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and have demonstrated the necessary financial and technical capabilities to execute their exploration work programmes,” he added.

This, he stressed, is necessary to avoid delaying the discoveries of minerals.

The minister also revealed that currently, the ministry has 162 valid mining licenses, of which only 68 are actively mining. The rest, he noted, are on care and maintenance and some never started any mining activities since the issuing of licenses.