Japanese firm in mining venture

24 Jul, 2016 - 00:07 0 Views
Japanese firm in mining venture Minister Walter Chidhakwa

The Sunday News

Minister Walter Chidhakwa

Minister Walter Chidhakwa

Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
A JAPANESE firm Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) together with a number of other countries’ geological survey departments will assist the country’s imminent exploration company, Mineral Exploration Promotion Corporation (MEPC) to carry out its geological surveys.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa said the formation of MEPC, as well as the formulation of an Exploration Policy to quantify the country’s mineral resource and govern its exploitation was likely to be enacted soon.

The Government is looking forward to transforming the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) into an exploration company, MEPC, which would be funded from part of the revenue generated from mineral sales.

“The first reading of the Bill was done in Parliament and we are now anticipating the second reading to take place in the next few weeks and if it does take place we then expect the third reading to take place and then we go to Senate. I don’t envisage any difficulties with it because there is general support for the amendments, which will result in the formation of a substantive mining exploration company,” said Minister Chidhakwa.

He said the exploration company would be assisted by JOGMEC and a number of geological survey departments from various countries. JOGMEC, a Japanese Institution was created in 2004 when the former Japan National Oil Corporation merged with the former Metal Mining Agency of Japan. In Africa, the company has worked in Botswana.

JOGMEC’s Geological Remote Satellite Sensing Centre in Lobatse, Botswana was created in partnership with the southern African nation’s Department of Geological Survey in July 2008. The Japan-Botswana partnership will work together in developing the exploration of minerals through methods such as remote sensing. JOGMEC manages rare metal stockpiles in conjunction with private companies.

“The company (MEPC) has the role of using all the technologies at their disposal to do their work or activities which include aeromagnetic, geophysical surveys, geochemical surveys, among other technologies. They will work with for instance JOGMEC which is an organisation that is working in the Southern African region that is a company owned by the Japanese government. We will also bring in other geological survey departments of other countries so that they can work with our company,” said Minister Chidhakwa.

He said the Government was looking forward to establishing junior mining companies.

A junior mining company is an exploration company that looks for new deposits of gold, silver, uranium or other precious minerals. These companies target properties that are believed to have significant potential for finding large mineral deposits.

“We are also trying to encourage the establishment of what are called junior mining companies, which do nothing but exploration but we don’t have privately owned junior mining companies. These are ordinarily set up by geologists, and then geologists will then do exploration across the country and would sell their finding.

So we will encourage this establishment of junior mining companies and if need be we will fund them from the resources of the mining exploration company, it will also mean we put a small fund to support establishment of junior mining companies,” Minister Chidhakwa said.

Twitter: @DNsingo

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