Modern Mining October 2023

COPPER

increasingly becoming of interest, given that exten sive scale copper assets “just don’t exist any longer”. “Fifteen to twenty years ago, when large scale copper deposits were the norm, Omitiomire would have been insignificant; however, now that the pipe line of copper projects is rather thin, Omitiomire from a global perspective, is becoming extremely important.” Further to this, given that investors are monitor ing ESG credentials of copper assets more closely Omitiomire, which will be producing a relatively clean form of copper for the export market, will be welcomed by the industry. “The final product will be 99.99% pure cath ode, which means that our freight costs will also be extremely low as we will be shipping refined metal.” Moreover, Omico is planning on taking advantage of the Namibian sunshine environment and is invest ing in solar power. Tenders for the development of a 25 MW solar power plant have already been issued with the proj ect developer looking to source as much as 30% of its energy requirements from solar. When built, the Omitiomire project will be the impetus for job creation in the area and an important contributor to the national economy. According to Stuart, following the disruptions created by the Covid pandemic in 2019, the mining friendly jurisdiction has experienced chronic unem ployment with the economy struggling to grow. “Over the past five to ten years, few new mines have been built locally, which means there is a large number of skilled people that are unemployed.

mine. We also have a large package of exploration land around the mine site itself,” says Stuart. Moreover, with copper being a critical mineral in the green movement and the global drive to achieve net zero emissions and given “a real scarcity of new copper projects coming online across the globe”, Sawyer sees development of the Omitiomire project as crucial in filling the future supply gap. “By 2035, the world is going to need an injection of a further 10 million tons per annum of copper, over and above the current global supply of 24-25 mtpa. This means industry needs to bring on-board a significant quantity of new copper production in a phenomenally short period of time. The timeline to discover new deposits, take them up the value curve and into construction and production is an extremely long-timetable, often taking decades, which is even more reason why the Omitiomire project, which is on the cusp of entering the construction stage, is all the more valuable to the macro arena,” notes Sawyer. He adds that whilst Omitiomire might be modest by global standards in terms of scale, the project is

Drilling underway at the Omitiomire project.

Greenstone Resources  Founded in 2013, Greenstone Resources is a private equity fund specialis ing in the mining and metals sector.  Since setting up Greenstone Mining 10 years ago, the mining investor has targeted copper as its commodity of choice based on its strong belief in the long-term fundamentals of the metal.  Copper accounts for as much as 74% of Greenstone’s portfolio of assets with the remainder being bauxite, potash, zinc, and gold.

16  MODERN MINING  October 2023