Why Namibia’s mining potential remains stagnant: Exploration-oriented vs Production-oriented companies

By Stanley Kambonde

In the mining world, there’s a huge difference between discovering resources and producing them. 

While large international companies (‘majors’) have access to large amounts of capital and are capable of developing major mines on their own, they usually avoid the early stages of exploration and prefer acquiring de-risked exploration projects from small exploration companies (‘juniors’) with completed preliminary economic assessments and feasibility studies. 

These assessments, conforming with internationally recognised reporting standards such as the JORC Code (Australian) or NI 43-101 (Canadian) are so costly, that juniors such as Osino Resources’ are reported to have spent N$ 1.5 billion on preparatory work since 2019 before its Twin Hills Gold project was acquired by Chinese mining major Shanjin (formerly Yintai Gold) for N$ 5 billion in 2024.#namibia #mining #exploration #capital