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Husab’s crossed T’s and dotted I’s

Sealing the deal: Mr Zheng Keping, Deputy Chairman of Swakop Uranium (centre), Mr Tollie Nel (left), Managing Director: Sub-Saharan Africa of Tenova Bateman, and Mr Colin Kubank, MD of Amec (right) signing the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract in Beijing.

Sealing the deal: Mr Zheng Keping, Deputy Chairman of Swakop Uranium (centre), Mr Tollie Nel (left), Managing Director: Sub-Saharan Africa of Tenova Bateman, and Mr Colin Kubank, MD of Amec (right) signing the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract in Beijing.

The Husab Project Joint Venture, comprising AMEC, the international engineering and project management company, and Tenova Bateman, has been awarded a reimbursable contract for the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) of Swakop Uranium’s Husab Project near Swakopmund. The total contract value is R822-million.
The contract follows the Husab Project owner’s team and AMEC’s completion in April 2011 of the definitive feasibility study for the Husab Project, which will be developed as a low-risk, large-scale load-and-haul open pit mine, feeding ore to a conventional agitated acid leach process plant.
AMEC will act as lead on all Husab Project Joint Venture activities and will hold specific responsibility for project management and engineering, with responsibilities for procurement and construction to be shared with the joint venture partner.
Project construction will take approximately 34 months, with the mine expected to commence production towards the end of 2015.
“The award of this contract to the Husab Project Joint Venture not only underlines our capability and experience in the mining sector, but also demonstrates the breadth of AMEC’s involvement across the nuclear fuel cycle,” said Dr Hisham Mahmoud, AMEC’s Group President, Growth Regions.
Husab is the largest/highest grade, granite-hosted uranium deposit in Namibia. The reserve estimation shows that Husab has a potential mine life of more than 20 years, with uranium reserves of at least 280 million pounds.
Swakop Uranium is a wholly-owned Namibian subsidiary of Taurus Minerals Limited, an entity owned by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company (CGNPC) Uranium Resources Co., Ltd and the China-Africa Development Fund.

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