congo state miner to move...

Wednesday February 8, 6:52 PM
Congo state miner to move beyond gold to iron ore
CAPE TOWN, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Congo's state-owned mining firm Okimo wants to expand beyond its traditional gold and is seeking partners to exploit massive iron-ore deposits, its head said on Wednesday.

Okimo Chief Executive Victor Kasongo also said the group wants its partner, South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti , to move faster to begin mining at its Kilo Moto gold project in the northeast of the country.

Okimo plans to seek partners before the end of the year on exploiting two massive iron ore deposits in the former Belgian colony -- Tina and Mt. Kodo -- each thought to contain 5 billion tonnes of ore, he added during a presentation on the sidelines of the Indaba mining conference in Cape Town.

"These are major deposits that have been known since Belgian times... high level exploration has been done to establish the volumes," he said.

A separate company is expected to be created for the iron ore project, which envisages transport of the ore through Uganda and shipment from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to customers such as China.

In a second phase, a steel plant is hoped to be built to add value to iron ore within the Democratic Republic of Congo.



Okimo, which has 83,000 sq km of mineral concessions in the mineral-rich northeast of Congo, is under pressure from the government to help boost economic development in the country, Kasongo said.

"Now we have been given the mandate to increase value... to get Okimo to international standards," he said. "We want to look at our portfolio in a more professional manner."

JUMP START GOLD OUTPUT

As part of the push, Okimo is seeking to jump-start the resumption of gold production in an area that was one of the world's major producers before mines were abandoned during a devastating civil war.

Kasongo said Okimo has been holding talks with AngloGold Ashanti, the world's third biggest gold producer, to move faster on one of the biggest gold concessions in the Kilo Moto area. Okimo has a 13.8 percent stake in the project.

"These deposits are huge, we believe they can get it going sooner," he said. There were at least 5-7 million ounces of gold ready to be mined, he added, without giving details of when he wanted AngloGold to launch output.

AngloGold, which was not immediately available for comment, suspended exploration briefly last year after it was criticised for providing some funds to local militias in the area still troubled by sporadic conflict.

AngloGold said its local personnel had paid militias under duress, but said it had tightened guidelines so it would not reoccur.

According to AngloGold's website, one area of its concession -- the Adidi area around Mongbwalu - has around 1.2 million ounces of gold at 9.9 grams/tonne. If exploration was successful there, a feasibility study was expected in 2008 with construction launched in 2009, the website says.

Kasongo said Okimo is due to sign a partnership deal with another partner, Canadian-listed Moto Goldmines to begin production, but he did not give details.

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