Starting today, representatives from well-known North American mining companies and stakeholders will meet online with the mining ministers of African countries, including Tom Alweendo from Namibia. Canada speaks of economic growth, while environmentalists are skeptical about further developments such as the oil exploration in the Kavango regions.
Windhoek
Due to the ongoing measures against the COVID-19 epidemic, this year’s mining congress of the “Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada” (PDAC) will be held as an online conference from March 8th to March 11th. Canada’s Minister for Small Businesses, Export Promotion and International Trade, Mary Ng, will attend as keynote speaker. The event is considered to be the largest “African mining event in America”. The third point of focus is on Namibia – right after the opening and the first focus discussion that deals with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The organizers welcome all interested parties with an invitation – you can register at the Internet address “https://bit.ly/3sOhyAY” and follow the action. The expected participants include the African Mining Ministers of Angola, Diamantino Pedro Azevedo and Botswana’s Lefoko Moagi, DRCs Willy Kitobo, Ethiopia’s Takele Uma Banti, as well as Lamine Seydou Traore from Mali, South Africa’s Thabo Mokoena and Tom Alweendo from Namibia. Mining representatives from Tanzania and Guinea will also attend.
In addition to Ng, the managing directors of the mining companies Barrick (Mark Bristow), B2Gold (Clive Johnson) and IAMGOLD (Gordon Stothart) will be keynote speakers during the three-day program. Ng had promised beforehand, on behalf of the liberal government of Canada, that he wanted to develop new partnerships with African countries: “Together with our industrial partners, we can bring about the sustainable and all-encompassing recovery of the world economy.”
Environmentalists are waiting
curious; excited
In Namibia and elsewhere in the world, environmentalists are eagerly awaiting further developments regarding gas and oil exploration in the Kavango regions (including the Okavango Delta). Botswana recently gave in and banned the Canadian exploration company Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica) from drilling in the vicinity of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Tsodilo Hills and is now also questioning oil production through fracking.
Yesterday afternoon the Namibian Ministry of Mining and Energy (MME) announced in a press release that ReconAfrica had not yet been granted a fracking permit. It repeats what had already been leaked to the press and environmental activists in bits and pieces, but then reassures the public that every phase of the prospecting and test drilling process will be monitored with ReconAfrica and the Ministry of the Environment. The future search and promotion will be done in an environmentally friendly way.
The ministry is thus not addressing the environmental impact studies that have been objected to so far and the resulting environmental safety certificates. At the time of the COVID-19 curfew in the previous year (2020), ReconAfrica allegedly interviewed the community and stakeholders and concluded that there were no objections to an oil exploration. This process was questioned as unlawful, especially since ReconAfrica had repeatedly stated that the unconventional extraction of oil (i.e. fracking) promised the greatest success. Against such a project in the ecologically sensitive and biodiverse Kavango regions, not only the environmentalists in Namibia, but worldwide (AZ reported) are resisting.
Stock market run
Meanwhile, the ReconAfrica share price experienced a significant downturn after the public meeting in Windhoek just under a month ago. Ultimately, the government regulatory agency IIROC (Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada) intervened and banned stock trading for just under a week. However, this should also have been due to the “redemption of warrants by the upcoming deadline, combined with panic selling”, according to Yahoo Finance.
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