North River Resources Plc (LON:NRRP) Chief Executive Officer James Beams caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the mining licence application for their Namib Lead Zinc Project
Q1: You’ve put out an announcement this morning on the mining licence application for the Namib Lead Zinc Project, can you explain what this means and what the process now is for obtaining the licence?
A1: Yes, certainly a real concrete step forward in the process to obtaining the licence, we applied for the licence back in April 2014 and so very pleased to get at least this first step forward in that regard. I guess the notice we received from the Ministry of Mines and Energy in Namibia late last week confirms, and this is the title of that notice really, the Ministry’s preparedness to grant us the mining licence and that is subject to a number of conditions set out in that notice. So we now have 30 days to respond to the notice and then if we accept then a further 60 days to submit a proposal on those attached conditions. Those conditions, maybe just to expand a bit more, those conditions include things like Namibian participation in the ownership and management of the company and also we’ll set out a defined corporate social responsibility strategy and then this proposal on all of those issues must then be approved by the Ministry in order for the licence to be issued. I should emphasise that we do still need to reach agreement on these conditions and until then we cannot firmly assume the licence will be granted.
Q2: So how long do you think that you expect the process to take?
A2: Well, as I mentioned, there is this initial 30 day period and then North River Resources have 60 days to set out our proposal, obviously obtaining this licence is a critical piece in the puzzle to advancing our Namib project and so we’ll be progressing that as fast or as quickly as we can. It’s a bit difficult to say beyond that timeline, a bit difficult to anticipate I guess how long the overall process will take other than as I say giving it our full attention.
Q3: Now, apart from the mining licence, how is the project progressing for North River Resources Plc?
A3: We set out a revised work programme late last year and we’re making good progress on underground exploration development and this is advancing a drive that’ll facilitate resource drilling and in parallel with that development work, that drilling programme is also underway and I hope to be able to provide the market with an update on all of that fairly soon.
