Savannah Resources moves closer to Oman copper production with letters of approval
An AIM listed multi commodity development company, with a portfolio of projects across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, has moved closer to bringing its copper project into production.
Savannah Resources has announced in a statement this week that it has received letters of approval from all eight government ministries for its two high-grade copper deposits in Oman.
The letters of no objection were received from all eight Ministries for both the Mahab 4 and Maqail South mining licence applications.
Savannah is a 65% shareholder in the Omani company Al Fairuz Mining LLC, the holder of the Block 5 exploration licence which includes these two high-grade copper deposits.
Savannah’s CEO, David Archer said: “We are delighted that the Maqail South and Mahab 4 mine developments have each now obtained all eight Ministerial sign-offs as we seek to conclude the mine licensing process with Public Authority of Mining (PAM),”
“In light of the very favourable copper price environment and strong interest from potential offtakers for high-quality copper concentrate, we are excited to be moving closer to being the first new copper mine development in Oman for a number of years and look forward to finalising the licensing process with PAM.”
“Alongside our licensing progress, we have been participating in the government sponsored Tanfeedh Labs sessions, which have provided an excellent opportunity to bring together all stakeholders related to the mining industry in Oman and provided an industry sounding board for the proposed new mining law in Oman, which is moving towards adoption and is focussed on making.”
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Oman’s mining environment more attractive to investors and supporting the development of the industry in-country. This is something we are of course very supportive of as we believe it is an opportune time to be bringing two new mines on-stream in Oman.”
Savannah has rights to two blocks covering 1,004km² in the copper-rich, Semail Ophiolite Belt in the Sultanate of Oman. The two blocks (Block 4 and Block 5) are located approximately 180km northwest of Muscat, the capital city of Oman, and within close proximity to the export Port of Sohar.
Block 5 has a current Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.7Mt at 2.2% copper ('Cu'), including a high-grade zone of 0.5Mt at 4.5% Cu, which was defined at the Mahab 4 target.
At Block 4, the Company has defined multiple prospective targets for development. This includes four targets (Aarja, Zuha, Lasail and Bayda) which host old copper mines that collectively produced over 190,000t copper.
Savannah will now seek to conclude the licensing process with the PAM for the issuance of the two Mining Licences