The Association of Zambian Mineral Exploration Companies (AZMEC) has said there is urgent need for new and more geophysical surveys in the country to increase exploration activities, which in-turn leads to increased mining production.
Increased mineral exploration activities are a forerunner to the expansion of the mining industry as this is the first stage of investment, which when successfully completed develops to opening of large scale mining operations.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, AZMEC secretary general Alex Matthews said geophysical surveys has an important role to play in reducing geological uncertainties in mining.
Matthews said freely available cutting-edge new geoscience data has been a demonstrated route to growth of the sector in some countries. He said the geological survey department need to publish more geological maps of areas that are currently unmapped.
“The challenges that are there are availability of ground maps, delays in awarding and renewing licences, access to geological data from the survey department, and lack of availability of recent regional/ national geophysical surveys among others,” Matthews said.
Matthews said currently, the association members often experienced difficulties in accessing geological data. He said ready availability of such data has the ability to attract more investments into the country as investors usually look for such data to make investment decisions.
“The geological survey department has been telling us that they are addressing that and are trying to go online where you can actually log on and look for things that you want, so we are still waiting”, stated AZMEC
“As you may be aware, when an exploration company wants to come in the country, they look for information related to what they want to do so that they can build up from there, they wouldn’t want to be doing the same things that others have already done, because it’s expensive to carry out an exploration exercise,” Matthews said.
He said the aim for exploration companies is to make a discovery and give their investor return on their investment. These discoveries are what leads to Mine developments which then contribute to increased mineral production for the country.
Matthew said, “If you have the best data, regional survey people will pick places where they want to go into. So there is need to provide data.
The association currently comprises of five large-scale exploration companies, four associate members and 3 individual members. The large exploration companies include ZCCM-IH, Rio Tinto, Anglo Exploration Zambia limited, Goviex Mining Limited and Universal Mining and Chemical Industries Ltd (UMCIL).
