The Australian mining firm, Base Titanium’s will not be exiting its Kwale location in mid-2022 as scheduled. This follows their lease extended by the government of Kenya by 13 more months
Petroleum and Mining Principal Secretary Andrew Kamau made the announcement and said the firm which has also started exploration in Tanzania and is eyeing Madagascar to extend its mining exploration in Africa, is allowed to operate in Kenya till November 2023.
“Base Titanium is fully industrial. That is where we are aiming as a country, to encourage Kenyans to tap into and exploit the lucrative mining sector,” said Andrew Kamau.
More applications
Base Titanium’s General Manager for External Affairs Simon Wall expressed optimism after the renewal of the licence. The news also comes as a relief to more than 1,000 employees whose contracts would have been terminated at the end of June. If the firm gets another licence on the variation of Bumamani area in North Coast, it will extend operations by a further six months until June 2024.
“The government finalised a variation to our mining licence last year that provided us with an extra 13 months to continue through to 2023. Minerals within our mining tenure area will be depleted, but we have a boundary variation location with the government, which will take us up to June 2024,” said Mr Wall.
“We have several prospecting licence applications with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining in some parts of Kwale and North Coast closer to Lamu. If they are granted, it will allow us to take samples to determine whether the minerals that we are interested in exist in an economically viable quantity. Thereafter, the firm will close those areas for future mining,” he added.
