Africa-Press – Namibia. WHAT started as a dream in 2015 has turned into a new gold discovery at Twin Hills, 20 kilometres from Navachab, and is expected to become Namibia’s biggest gold mining project.
According to Heye Daun, the chief executive officer of Canadian company Osino Resources that has been exploring in the area, the Twin Hills project has taken a short two-and-a half years to advance from discovery to the pre-feasibility stage.
“It is one of 28 major discoveries of the last 10 years globally,” Daun told South African publication Mining Weekly.
Osino discovered Twin Hills under thick Navachab sand and calcrete cover in what is the biggest regional gold deposit outside South Africa’s world-renowned Witwatersrand basin.
The official resource of 2,7 million ounces of gold is expected to grow to between 3,5 and four million ounces in the next few years.
“We now have a quality asset. We have turned the dream into reality,” Daun told Mining Weekly.
The Twin Hills project is an open cast operation with a straight forward geology and metallurgy. Of the 15km gold system delineated, six kilometres have been drilled, according to Daun.
He said Osino expects the project to be a 100 000 to 200 000 ounce-a-year producer with a 10-15-year mine lifespan.
This project is not the first gold mine Daun has been involved in in Namibia.
Together with Canadian colleagues, they acquired a discarded project in Namibia from the now defunct, once South Africa-based AngloVaal mining major a few years before coming to Twin Hills.
They paid US$25 million for it, drilled it hard and advanced it to feasibility stage before selling it two years later to B2Gold for just under US$200 million.
B2Gold, founded in Canada, went on to build the very successful Otjikoto gold mine, which is set to make US$200 million of free cash a year as a billion US dollar company.
B2Gold became the blueprint for Osino, which Daun, as a born and bred Namibian mining engineer, felt he may be able to replicate.
Ironically, mining majors had been swarming over Twin Hills for decades but failed to find the ore body because it was under cover.
Namibia has the sedimentary orogenic Pan-African Damara belt, which is very prospective.
Its issue is that, very similar to Botswana, it is mostly under cover, which is why it is only now emerging as a special gold and copper mineralising belt, Daun said.
“There are other companies doing very similar things to what we’ve done in gold in Botswana and in Namibia, so I think you’ll hear a lot more about this region in terms of new discoveries.
“Namibia is a very pleasing place to work. Obviously, I’m very impartial to it being a Namibian myself,” Daun quipped.
“What Osino has achieved I think is a textbook of what exploration can achieve in bringing foreign direct investment into countries along with socio-economic development,” said Daun, who described his company as having “by far” the biggest licensed position in Namibia.
It has spent US$50 million on exploration in the last three to four years and is transitioning from being an exploration company to being a mine developer and then a mine operator.
Namibia exported N$13 billion worth of gold between 2020 and 2021.
It is estimated that the development/construction of the mine would cost US$300 million over 15-18 months, and will bring the total investment into the mine to around US$350 million, which would produce some 200 000 ounces per year.
Despite, the high Namibian mining tax rate at 37,5% for gold, it appears exploration continues.
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