Existing mine permits safe: Namibian minister

existing mining and exploration licences.
The Southern African nation has worried investors with a recent decision to grant future rights to strategic minerals to a state company.
“The existing exploration and mining licences will not be affected,” Mining Minister Isak Katali said in a statement issued at a news briefing to clarify issues around the policy.
Katali had already been quoted in the local media as saying the plan will only apply to future mineral rights and not existing ones.
Investors had sought clarification on the policy, but Namibia’s government has said little and the initial government decision in late March had not been immediately announced.
Uranium explorer Extract Resources had seen its share price hammered after the initial reports that rights to uranium and other minerals would be assigned to the state-owned company, Epangelo.
But while it said it was seeking clarity it also expressed confidence that the government’s proposed policy changes on strategic minerals would not affect its Husab uranium project licence.
“Our application for a mining licence will be decided on under the existing rules. So it is business as usual,” Extract’s chairman Steve Galloway told Reuters after the briefing.
Epangelo, which will lack the capital to pursue major projects, will be able to form joint ventures with other companies and so will be the vehicle through which investors will have to enter the country’s mining sector. – Reuters.