The United States Ambassador to Yaoundé, Christopher J.Lamora paid a courtesy visit to Gabriel Dodo Ndoke, Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development.
On Monday August 29, 2022 in Yaoundé, Gabriel Dodo Ndoké and Christopher J. Lamora returned to the outlines of a project which involves an American company but has been slow to start since obtaining the operating permit on April 11, 2003. information is revealed by the communication unit (Celcom) of the Minmidt on the Facebook page of this ministerial department.
Minmidt’s Celcom notes that “during this courtesy visit, Gabriel Dodo Ndoke and Fuh Calistus Gentry discussed aspects of cooperation in the mining sector“. The discussions focused in particular on “the question of the activities of the American company Geovic linked to the license to exploit nickel, cobalt and manganese in Nkamouna, a mining site in the municipality of Lomié, in the Eastern region”. We remember that the latest news on this exploitation reports a “Brangle between Americans and Australians for the control of the Cobalt of Lomié“, as wrote the tri-weekly with private capital Ecomatin, specialized in economic and financial information , in an article published on its website on July 4, 2022. According to our colleague, “the Australian mining junior Cyclone Mining recently announced that it was preparing to obtain the exploitation permit for the cobalt, nickel and manganese deposit of Nkamouna. What to raise the tension with Phoenix Mining which holds this title because of the recent acquisition of Geovic Mining”.
Since April 11, 2003, Geovic has obtained the first mining permit in the country to exploit the nickel, cobalt and manganese deposits of Nkamouna. Despite a feasibility study submitted to the government, Geovic has never been able to market this ore. There were even reports that Geovic left the site in 2013. The same sources revealed that the American company tried to sell all of its assets on the mining project to the Chinese company Jiangxi Rare Metals Tungsten Group Holdings Company Ltd. In vain.
When the Minmidt raises the issue with the United States Ambassador to Cameroon, the director of Geovic Cameroon, Justin Lowe, indicates that “we are in the design project phase, and this includes site engineering, base camp, logistics plan (combining trucks per day on the roads, crossing the Dja etc.). In this context, we also collected samples for the “test” factory in our laboratories”.
We also learn that during the meeting between company officials and municipal authorities on March 13, 2022, the latter learned that the work should start “in less than two years”. The mayor of Lomié, Gérard Lomié, then revealed that “on the site, there are new people who have cleaned up the formerly abandoned site. They are busy with certain preparatory work for their final installation. Hope is therefore reborn among the local population. Especially after this other high-level meeting.
As a reminder, the municipality of Lomié is one of those whose industrialization activities are monitored by the Minmidt. We remember that after the Minister on May 9, 2022, it was the turn of the Secretary of State, Fuh Calistus Gentry, to visit this city on August 18 and 19, 2022 to assess the construction work of the complex. wood processor in Lomié (Ciblo). During this visit, the member of the government was able to realize that the work had reached a progress rate of 55% for this project which integrates 152 community forests and 2 community forests to provide a platform of 53 ha, which will be soon to be extended to 400 ha, to 300 to accommodate SMEs with 5 to 30 employees preparing to create more than 3,000 jobs.
