Desie Heita
Windhoek-One of the companies exploring for cobalt in an area near the town Opuwo, in Kunene Region, is to list on the Namibian Stock Exchange next week, on April 24. The company, Celsius Resources, says “it is very pleased to announce that it has received approval to dual list on the NSX.” Celsius Resources is already listed on the Australian Security Exchange (ASX). “The listing will take place a day prior to the two-day Namibian Chamber of Mines and Mining Expo & Conference, which will also be held in Windhoek,” the company said in a statement.
The company says the dual listing would provide Namibians with local access to invest in Celsius Resources, which has its primary listing on the ASX. “Namibians can participate as investor and shareholders in a cobalt focused company based on the large-scale Opuwo Cobalt Project,” the statement said. Celcius Resources is the one exploring at the site that is 30 kilometres from Opuwo to Etanga.
The other company doing mining exploration in the Kunene area, next to Celsius Resources, is Canadian listed company, Namibia Rare Earths Inc. The Kunene has been found to contain what is estimated to be fair size deposits of cobalt mineralisation associated with low-grade copper and zinc mineralisation in black shales.
Namibia Rare Earths Inc is exploring for cobalt at Epembe, 87 kilometres north-west of Opuwo, halfway to Okangwati.
It is also exploring at a place nearly 65 kilometres to Etanga when driving from Opuwo, and at a place around the town of Khorixas.
However, in March Namibia Rare Earths Inc announced additional expenses for the exploration, because it believes there are more mineral deposits, in addition to cobalt. The new expenses of N$35 million, to be raised from a private placement of common shares, are to fund the exploration of other highly critical commodities besides cobalt, which are copper, zinc, lithium, graphite, tantalum, niobium, nickel and gold.
The company says it wants to “accelerate development of the Lofdal Rare Earths Project and on building a critical metal portfolio in Namibia.” The Lofdal Rare Earths Project is also in Kunene, just somewhere near the town of Khorixas. Hence the company’s board decided to change its name to ‘Namibia Critical Metals Inc’, to accurately reflect the recently expanded commodity base.
The excitement around rare earth minerals in Kunene, especially within Opuwo’s mountainous area, comes more than ten years ago when the Founding President Sam Nujoma mentioned that the mountains of Kunene could be hiding some of the most treasured minerals for Namibia, which are yet to be discovered. So much so that in 2008, Nujoma, who read geology at the University of Namibia, when he went to campaign for Swapo in the region, made his helicopter stop in the mountains around Opuwo. He then climbed the mountains where he spent a couple of hours hammering rocks, and took away stones as samples to take to the laboratories for examination of what minerals are possibly hidden underneath those mountains.
The managing director of Celsius Resources Brendan Borg this week said: “The maiden [results findings] for the Opuwo project meaningfully exceeds the company’s expectations.”
“This is an important milestone that has defined a globally significant potential future cobalt source at Opuwo,” he said.