Kenya to pick contractor for minerals survey by Dec

Mining Cabinet Secretary Dan Kazungu

Kenya will appoint a company by December to conduct a year-long airborne survey to map its mineral deposits to attract mining explorers to the nascent sector, Mining Cabinet Secretary Dan Kazungu said on Wednesday.

Kazungu said the ministry has initial funding of Sh3 billion from the Treasury in the 2016/17 (July-June) fiscal year to start the survey.

Kenya has proven deposits of titanium, gold and coal and is also understood to hold significant deposits of copper, niobium, manganese and rare earth minerals.

“In our forecast we believe we should be able to have that contractor through competitive bidding who will do the airborne survey,” Kazungu told reporters on the sidelines of a mining industry conference.

He said the ministry would hire a consultant in the next month or so to work with geologists to help the contractor with Kenya’s first such survey.