Tulu Kapi Gold Mines (TKGM) has signed the Final Umbrella Agreement with two of its major industry contractors, British earthmoving construction firm, PW Mining and Australian process plant construction company, Lycopodium.
Tulu Kapi, the gold and copper exploration and development company is the first mining project in Wolega, Oromia Regional State.
After signing the agreement, chairman for KEFI, Harry Anagnostaras-Adams, told ENA that it is a large project; it'll be exporting approximately 300 million USD per annum gold and silver upon completion of construction by 2025.
It will employ directly and indirectly up to 10,000 people, and Foreign Direct Investment so far has been about 100 million USD, and with an additional 400 million USD to complete the project.
“Those steps we have to go through with the government obviously, finalizing all the arrangements in the community... as soon as all preparations complete, we can move forward and we have two years of construction and gold production,” he said.
He noted that his company Kapi is a sponsoring company and brought Africa’s largest development bank as part of it.
He added we brought in very large contractors who specialized in mining--British and Australian contractors in different aspects of the project.
“We have a number of investors through us and also the federal government and the regional government are also shareholders. So, it's a public private partnership with Kapi the largest shareholder and government is a key shareholder but also banks and contractors playing their role in the project,” he said.
The agreement was attended by, including, country director for TKGM, Abera Mamo, Chairman for KEFI, Harry Anagnostaras-Adams, finance director for PW Mining, Ciaran Quinn, commissioner for Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC), Lelise Neme, state minister of finance, Semereta Sewasew and other government officials.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency