IRAN is dispatching an advance technical team here next week to help Guyana get a more detailed inventory of its mineral wealth reserves, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon announced yesterday.
The mission will work closely with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) on preparing for the deployment later of Iranian geologists and physicists who will undertake actual high-tech mapping of the mineral reserves.
The team due next week will “plan and do the preparatory aspects” for the experts who will follow, Luncheon told his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing at the Office of the President complex in Georgetown.
Iranian support to Guyana to map its mineral reserves is covered in a bilateral programme drawn up during President Bharrat Jagdeo’s official visit to Iran and other Middle East countries in January this year.
The President reported that Iran has agreed to deploy its world class geo-scientific techniques to help Guyana accurately map its mineral wealth deposits.
He told reporters here on his return that because Iran is in a very active earthquake region, it had developed world class geo sciences labs and was using the same science employed to predict earthquakes to map mineral potential and resources.
Guyana has long lacked this capability and because of the absence of data on its mineral resources, it had relied on investors to seek prospecting licences and then develop a project in a “hit and miss way”, he said.
The Iran offer, the President said, opened new vistas and he disclosed that GGMC head, Mr. William Woolford, was excited about the prospects.
Luncheon told a press conference at the Office of the President complex in February that the terms and conditions under which the support from Iran has been offered did not seek to identify any particular ore or mineral.
He said the local geological service unit that previously did comprehensive geological surveys for the state using modern technologies suffered from financing and did not grow to meet the needs of large and medium scale gold and diamond miners.
Luncheon noted that in the absence of an aggressive geological mapping programme, Guyana has been relying more on venture capitalists who concentrated on specific territory.
“The Iranians have offered to close that gap” in the mapping, he said, adding that their specialists will be working all over Guyana with the GGMC to fashion a plan to do the geological surveys needed to identify the locations and size of mineral and ore deposits.
The Guyana Government has stressed that the offer by Iran to help for the mineral reserves survey is not confined to the search for a particular ore or mineral.
Luncheon earlier stressed the point amid suggestions in reports by the Reuters and Associated Press news agencies from their local correspondents that the Iranian offer is linked to a search for uranium deposits in Guyana.
Uranium is used in nuclear reactors and some Western countries are opposed to Iran’s development of its nuclear programme which it says is for peaceful purposes, like providing electricity