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Gabon’s first mini gold refinery to start operations this year

Left to right: Minister of Economy Nicole Janine Lydie Roboty-Mbou, Minister of Petroleum, Gas and Mines Vincent de Paul Massassa, and ACM CEO Anand Bajla, February 2022. Picture: PAT Gabon.

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The Government of Gabon has signed convention agreements this week with Alpha Centauri Mining (ACM) to boost gold exploration, exploitation and refining in the country. The company is held by British and Emirati investors and entered Gabon in 2016. In September last year it produced about 100 kg of gold per month, according to its website.  

The agreements signed with the Government of Gabon this week covers the exploitation of gold mines in the Ndjole region, along with gold exploration in the Middle-Ogooue and Ogooue Ivindo provinces.

More importantly, they also set the framework for the commissioning and operation of the country’s first gold refinery.

“Alpha Cenauri Mining is building the country’s first refinery in the Gabon Special Economic Zone and we expect to start operations by mid-2022,” CEO Anand Bajla said after the signing ceremony. “We will start with a capacity of 4 tonnes per annum to enable Gabon to export refined gold,” he added.

The mini modular refinery is a good first step for Gabon, who has so far struggled to fully develop its gold potential. Latest government data available shows gold output at 0.1 tonne in 2020.

However, exports earnings have been on the rise and stood at FCFA 8.3bn between January and September 2021, compared with FCFA 2.7bn in 2019.

To boost investments in the sector and support local content development, Gabon adopted a new Mining Code in 2019.

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OFFICIAL: co-venturers on Block 2913b confirm Venus discovery offshore Namibia

TotalEnergies, who has a 40% operated interest in block 2913b within Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 56, has confirmed that it has made a major light oil discovery at the Venus-1X well. The discovery was also officially confirmed this morning by its co-venturers Impact Oil & Gas and Namibia’s state-owned oil company NAMCOR. Venus was one of the most anticipated well in the world last year and was spudded in December 2021. Rumours have been circulating for a week now that a massive discovery has been made, with a potential find of well over 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. While no official confirmation has been given yet on the size of the discovery, Impact Oil & Gas has announced that the find contains light oil and associated gas and constitutes a world-class discovery that exceeded pre-drill expectations. ““A comprehensive coring and logging program has been completed and will enable the preparation of appraisal operations designed to assess the commerciality of this discovery,” said Kevin McLachlan, Senior Vice President Exploration at TotalEnergies.  The discovery lies in the deep-waters of the Orange Basin in southern Namibia, where Shell also announced this month an oil discovery at the Graff-1 well on PEL 39. “The Venus well was drilled to a total depth of 6,296 metres by the Maersk Voyager drillship, and encountered a high-quality, light oil-bearing sandstone reservoir of Lower Cretaceous age, with 84 metres of net oil pay,” Impact Oil & Gas said. Block 2913b is operated by TotalEnergies EP Namibia B.V (40%) along with its partners QatarEnergy (30%), Impact Oil and Gas Namibia (20%), and Namcor (10%). Details on the block are available in the Hawilti+ research terminal.

Namibia: O&L and CMB.TECH target first hydrogen by 2023

On Tuesday this week, Namibia’s Ohlthaver & List (O&L) Group and Belgium’s CMB.TECH have announced Namibia’s first green hydrogen production plant in the country’s Erongo region, west of Windhoek. The project will serve as a demonstration hub for hydrogen applications and is expected to start operating in 2023. “Depending on the results of the demonstration plant, a larger scale production plant will follow in a second phase, possibly using ammonia as transport fuel,” CMB.TECH said in a statement. Cleanergy Namibia, the joint-venture set up by both companies, aims to produce green hydrogen from solar power and for distribution to heavy-duty applications like trucks, locomotives, mining equipment and ships.