Time running out for company to set up uranium mine
Dar es Salaam. Mantra Tanzania Limited (Mantra) is rushing against time as it seeks to beat the deadline for developing a uranium mine at its Mkuju River site.
Run by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom the Mkuju River Uranium project received a mining development licence in 2013.
Rosatom had previously hoped to start construction and mining uranium at Mkuju River project (located at Namtumbo in Ruvuma) in 2013 but the date was later shifted to 2016 - and,ultimately, to 2018.
With the depressed uranium market, the company suspended the project further - to 2020 - in the hope that prices the demand for uranium would be restored in 2020.
Rosatom has been under constant claims, demands and even lawsuits following multiple delays of the project.
But in what sends some new hope, Mantra Tanzania put up an advertisement in a newspaper this week, seeking a pre-qualification for a contractor for the provision of project design work on its Mkuju Project.
The statement requires interested contractors to submit their applications, complete with detailed company information and their organizational structures, by April 25 this year.
The government issued Matra Tanzania with a special mining license in 2013 and is expected to end after 15 years in 2028.
The Commissioner for Minerals in the Minerals ministry, Mr Zephania Maduhu told The Citizen in a telephone interview that the Mkuju was one of the mega mining projects in the country and that was why the company was issued with a Special Mining Licence (SML)-489/2013.
“We awarded the license on April 5, 2013 with a status of 197.94 sq.km land which is expected to end in 15 years,” he said.
Meanwhile an official from the ministry who asked not to be named confirmed that Mantra had initially asked to postpone the project because at the time prices of uranium were dropping.
However, he noted that they were yet to communicate with the ministry and were therefore not aware that they were looking for a contractor.
“According to the license they are allowed to look for contractor to develop the project and that when it comes to procurement of relevant materials and mobilisation of some material before actual construction starts, they will have to come back to us for some approvals,” he said. He said the ministry needs to conduct a number of things including auditing the procurement of equipment and therefore for the mine to start work it must first consult with the ministry as well as find a permit.
He explained that the permit should show their mining plan, production as well as when they would close the mine.
“While at least seven years have elapsed and remaining only eight , mobilization could take 2-3 years, but when they start their license can be renewed,” he said.
Should it come to fruition, this will be the third mega mining project to have been registered during the past five years.
In January this year (2020), the government flashed the greenlight for two large-scale mining firms to proceed to the mineral extraction stage that would see them inject over $200 million (about Sh440 billion) in the local economy and create hundreds of jobs.
The investments by Australian firms OreCorp and Peak Resources will be the largest for Tanzania after close to a decade of virtual dormancy in the establishment of new mines, the Minerals minister, Dotto Biteko, told The Citizen in January.
