Savannah receives positive advice from Oman authorities

Resource development company Savannah Resources announced on Friday that it had now received initial advice from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the development of a processing plant and tailings facility for its Block 4 and 5 copper projects in Oman.

The AIM-traded company said it had received “in principle” approval for its tailings storage facility concept, subject to further studies and test work being presented to MECA for review and consideration;

It said the TSF concept involved the utilisation of the abandoned Lasail West pit for tailings storage

The Lasail West pit remained adjacent to the main, historic Lasail Mine which, as a large underground operation produced around 13Mt of ore at 2% copper, and which the board said retained “excellent potential” for the identification of further copper mineralisation.

All regulatory applications for copper mine development at both Mahab 4 and Maqail South had now been submitted, and the licensing approval process continued to progress, although the board said that was taking longer than initially anticipated, which had resulted in some time loss to the proposed production schedule.

Mining was expected to begin in the first half of 2018.

“We are pleased that MECA has given us the green-light to consider the TSF concept we have suggested around the use of the existing abandoned Lasail West pit,” said Savannah CEO David Archer.

“This would be the first TSF of its type in Oman and we believe it would provide Savannah with an economic avenue for safe tailings storage, and at the same time would result in the overall rehabilitation of the Lasail West site, which remains of strategic resource value to the company.”

Archer said the preliminary approval of the TSF represented “another major step forward” towards commencing copper production.

“Whilst the overall licensing process for our mine development is taking longer than we had initially planned, which means we are now anticipating mining to start in the first half of 2018, we remain confident that these assets will be advanced into production in the near term.

“Our team and consultants continue to push to conclude the licensing process and we look forward to providing shareholders with further updates as appropriate.”