TechMet, a UK-based mining company, will deploy more capital worth $20 million (about Rwf19.5 billion) in its Rwanda operations in the next two years, Brian Menell, the firm’s Chief Executive said on Tuesday, November 10.
Menell, a South African renowned businessman in mining, oil and gas, and banking, among other sectors, announced this during a virtual press conference ahead of the Africa Mining Forum.
His firm owns Tinco, a local company that operates tin and tungsten mining concessions in Rutongo and Nyakabingo in Rulindo District.
“We do have a plan as TechMet in Rwanda to invest an excess of $20 million in the next two and half years in the expansion of tin and tungsten mines that are already within our portfolio with Tinco,” Menell said.
With regard to the area of very interesting and potentially large lithium potential, Menell highlighted his firm will be “deploying large significant capital in Tinco in the development of those projects in the coming years.”
Tinco is currently under negotiation with the government to overhaul its operations in Rwanda, and secure a purchase share agreement of key industrial mining blocks in the Northern Province.
The investor and government has had a four-year stalemate over the agreement, which has seen them lose out on more than 2,000 tonnes in the last four years between 2016 and to date.
“We missed out on up to 2000t of production looking at the original plan,” Luke Rogers, the representative of TechMet in Rwanda, the holding company of Tinco, told The New Times in an exclusive interview recently.
However, that is likely to change if negotiations go as planned, perhaps before the end of this year.
