East African Metals, a Canadian mine development company with an interest in exploration projects, has requested a license from the Ministry of Mines, Petroleum & Natural Gas, to start the large scale extraction of gold and silver in Ethiopia.
The company has submitted its application to produce the minerals, in Tigray regional state, Terakimti locality.
The company has been active in the exploration of gold in Ethiopia since 2011. East Africa owns 70pc of the Harvest Tigrai Gold project, near Shire town, 1,065km north of the capital. Back then, the company discovered 17,000 ounces of gold and 812,000 ounces of silver.
East announced on August 11, 2016, that the total amount of mineral resources in the licensed area is estimated to be 1.12 million tonnes.
A local company hired by East, Beles Engineering plc, has already completed its environmental impact and socio-economic assessment study for the project.
As far as gold mining is concerned, MIDROC is the only company involved in the sector on a large scale. It extracts gold in the Oromia region, at the Legedembi Gold Mine. Moreover, two companies, KEFI Minerals and Ezana Mining, have a large scale gold mining license.
The Ministry is now reviewing the application by the mining company.