WINDHOEK (Mineweb.com) -- Foreign mining companies after Namibia’s yellowcake are warned. The country has suspended issuing new uranium prospecting licences, as it seeks to bring order in the rush for its uranium resources.
Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Joseph Iita was quoted by the daily Namibian Wednesday as saying that no applications were currently being accepted and that the move would soon be published in the Government Gazette.
"It's a matter of regulating the issue of licences,” Iita was quoted as saying. “Everyone is running to Namibia for uranium and we don't want every Jack and Jill mining uranium."
Describing uranium as a special mineral, Iita said the Namibian government was reconsidering its policies on the resource adding that there as was an upsurge in the global demand for uranium, hence the need to regulate uranium activities.
"The world is now highly advanced and has come up with all sorts of uses for uranium. In the end uranium is not only used for the generation of electricity, but can be used for destructive purposes as well,” Iita was quoted as saying.
The move to suspend issuing new uranium prospecting licences comes head over heels on another moratorium that was slapped on the granting of diamond cutting and polishing licences – this coming after the government renewed its diamond sales agreement with De Beers that calls for more local beneficiation.
In the last two years, Namibia has emerged as a new frontier for uranium investors with local and international companies alike rushing in with applications for uranium prospecting and mining in Namibia.
The government has issued over 15 prospecting licences in the past six months to a mixture of Namibian, Canadian, Chinese, Australian and Ghanaian companies.
Early this year, Wise-Uranium listed the companies as Extract Resources; Kalahari Minerals; West Africa Gold Exploration; Forsys Metals Corporation; Westport Resources; Galahad Gold; UraMin; Namura Mineral Resources; Xemplar Energy; Australian United Gold; Bannerman Resources; Cheetah Minerals Exploitation; Corporate Resources Consultant; Etruscan Resources Namibia; the Chinese company Nam-China Minerals & Development; Namibia Mineral Mining Plants & Products; New Mining Company; Philco Twenty; Reptile Investment Four; Jaco Floris Smith and Nova Energy.
In 2005, Namibia was the world’s fifth largest uranium producer behind Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan and Russia, producing 8.18 million pounds of yellowcake – about 7.5 percent of the global uranium mined that year.
Paladin Resources began producing from the company’s Langer Heinrich uranium mine in December. Namibia’s oldest uranium mine, Rio Tinto’s Rössing Uranium is one of the world’s largest uranium producers.
Forsys Metals (TSX: FSY) and AIM-quoted UraMin are racing to put into production Namibia’s third uranium mine through their Valencia and Trekkopje projects.
Forsys’ Valencia project is expected to come into production later this year.
Early this month, its president Wayne Isaacs was quoted by StockInterview.com in an Audio Interview as saying: “I believe that we are closer to opening up the next uranium mine in Namibia. We've advanced our project, in my opinion, further at this stage than UraMin has.”
Isaac added, “We are in very close proximity to two producing uranium mines, that being Paladin and the Rössing mine which has further fast tracked our ability to bring Valencia possibly to being the third producing uranium mine in Namibia.”
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