Kilembe mines needs more exploration

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT |  The investor that will be awarded exploration license for Kilembe mines will be required to carry out new explorations to see if there are more reserves of copper that can be mined.

Speaking at the closure of a two-day mineral wealth conference in Kampala on Thursday, Irene Muloni, the Minister of Energy and Minerals Development said the investor will be required in the new arrangement to carry out the entire chain from exploration to beneficiation of the resource. 

Dr Jenifer Hinton, the director of M2 cobalt, one of the companies that seeks to take over Kilembe mines, says that it was both in the interest of the investor and the government that the reserves in Kilembe are increased.

She said the reserves currently there are internationally considered to be too small and a company like M2 Cobalt would want to have these resources upped.

In April, government approved a Kilembe mines re-development plan. However, the process is still on to find an investor to push the copper-rich mine forward.

Hinton said people were just focusing on copper as regards to Kilembe but also cobalt reserves there have great potential.

Kilembe has an estimated four million tonnes of ore, of which 1.98% is estimated to be pure copper and 0.17% cobalt.

Kilembe Mines was a major source of revenue for Uganda in the 1960s through 1970s but got a setback in 1977 when Idi Amin Dada, then as president of Uganda, ordered Canadians who were the investors to leave the mines in the hands of Ugandans.

Amin’s nationalisation policy was also followed by steep fall in the global prices of copper ore hence leading to the closure of the mines in 1978. 

However, in 2013, government offered a 25-year concession to Tibet Hima Mining Company Limited to revamp the mines.

But the concession was cancelled by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in 2017 October on grounds that Tibet Hima had failed to execute its mandate as prescribed in the concession.

Muloni also told investors who attended the conference that government would not relax its ban on the exportation of the raw minerals.

She said President Museveni was determined to see that all the minerals going out of Uganda are processed for the country to earn more money on the global market.  

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