REUNION Manganese Inc. (RMI), a new company formed to resume exploration in Guyana, expects to extract at least twenty million tons.
By the time it begins production for export, some US300M will have been spent, spokespersons said. Speaking after a planning meeting at Matthews Ridge last weekend, they announced that the search will cover some 45,000 hectares in Region 1, (Barima/Waini); and while the focus is in Port Kaituma/Matthews Ridge, it could extend to Pipiani, another North West District area.
Meantime, in preparation, trenching, to identify where the resources are, as well as drilling, is continuing. However, because of the challenges faced in recruiting, the company has had to hire, among others, 14 expatriate geologists, from Brazil, Haiti, Ethiopia and Ghana, the home country of Chief Operating Officer, Joaquim Bayah.
Coordinator of the RMI Environmental Impact, Abdellah Bankhalti, from Morocco, said they are still hiring other workers with basic skills as they continue to clear land where replanting, in accordance with this country’s low carbon development strategy (LCDS), will be undertaken.
Red Cedar is one of the species earmarked for that exercise, which will be in collaboration with the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), Deputy Commissioner of Forests Jagdesh Singh confirmed.
He was in the team of planners gathered at Matthews Ridge. Others were agricultural specialist John Piggott, Dr. Elisabeth Ramlal of the Ministry of Agriculture, and Major General (ret’d) Norman Mc Lean, whose experience in mining with Omai Gold Mines and Bosai Minerals is being tapped.
Samples of manganese taken from the location are being tested at a laboratory, established in Matthews Ridge, to function with assistance from Suriname.
Black gold
RMI was inaugurated October 2010, and is making use of much of the abandoned metal left by its predecessor, Union Carbide of South Africa. Some will be used to restart the railway system that the latter operated when it was searching for the so-called ‘black gold’.
Bankhalti said a fish pond is another venture to be started by the enterprise and the location is being readied.
Mc Lean added that an orchard, that would have papaw, after which the former Guyana National Service , of which he was Director General, named its Papaya Training Centre.
He said a number of activities have demonstrated the benevolence of RMI in the community. These include the donation of electricity generators to Pakera Hospital and Matthews Ridge Primary School, as well as an all terrain vehicle (ATV) to the Police Station there.
Roads have been re-routed and subjected to critically needed maintenance, and the steady rise in the price of gold and the resumption of manganese mining in North West has increased traffic to Port Kaituma airstrip, which now services between seven and 10 flights daily.
A large number of the 250 employed by RMI are ex-employees of Omai, which was owned by Canadian David Fennell, the man who left his legacy in the ‘Fennell Pit’ named for him at the mine he gave up locally, though he continues to have interests in other similar enterprises, in Suriname and further abroad.