Clemencia Jacobs
10 July 2009
Windhoek — The future of Namibia's mining industry might lie in the uranium sector as exploration and mining for this mineral has been increasingly active in the country, according to Joseph Iita, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
He said significant uranium deposits are currently being developed and existing mines are in full operation in the country.
"Globally, nuclear fuel demand is set to increase significantly as concerns about climate change and security of energy supplies encourage a revival of nuclear power plants, pushing the demand for uranium upwards. Many countries are now re-evaluating their energy policies; this is also reflected in the fluctuation of uranium oxide prices. Several years into a price recovery, the market outlook for uranium remains positive, although short-term spot and long-term market prices have declined from an all-time high in 2007," said Iita.
Namibia plans to become the world's third largest uranium producer by 2015.
Although there are several companies with exploration licenses that have not reached a stage where they reported significant uranium mineralisation, many such as Extract Resources, Langer Heinrich, Areva, West Australia Resources and Rössing Uranium, have showed positive drilling results.
The diamond and copper sectors are, however, still surrounded by uncertainty given the current economic trends, Iita said.
"However, the gold market is still strong and Namibia's gold production is expected to increase, particularly if the Oshikoto Gold project is accelerated to come on stream in the near future," he said.
The outlook for copper mining in the country is also optimistic as many companies are interested in mining copper, according to Iita.
"I am confident that there will be copper production in the Land of the Brave in the near future," he said.
Since Weatherly halted its operations, no copper mining has been taking place in the country.
Iita said the contribution from dimension stones such as granite, marble and sodalite, as well as semi-precious stones, is not very significant and is expected to remain unchanged in the short- to medium-term.
He said industrial minerals, like salt and fluorspar in particular, remains favourable and that this market is expected to perform well in the short- to medium-term.
The mining sector's preliminary contribution to GDP for 2008 is estimated at 15.9%.
The Bank of Namibia reported recently that diamonds, uranium, zinc and gold continue to be adversely affected by the global economic recession.
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