February 23, 2023, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Major local and international stakeholders of the Tulu Kapi Gold Project, Ethiopia’s first modern mining development today officially kicked off a workshop that aims to resolve remaining consents and approvals paving the way to commence activities on the ground. The participants of the workshop include senior officials from the Ministry of Mines, Ministry of Finance, National Bank of Ethiopia, representatives of international financiers, Tulu Kapi Gold Mines S.C, and its UK parent Company KEFI Gold and Copper PLC.
The Tulu Kapi Project is Ethiopia’s only ‘ready-to-start’ industrial mining project, making it the country’s first large-scale mining project for some 30 years, and is designed to the highest international standards. It, therefore, is imposing many demands on a regulatory system that the Ethiopian Government is upgrading, under strong leadership, determined to build a modern minerals sector.
Mr. Harry Anagnostaras-Adams, Chairman of Tulu Kapi Gold Mines S.C and its UK parent Company KEFI Gold and Copper PLC during his opening remarks said “our agenda in this workshop is resolve the few remaining regulatory and legal issues so that the project can be financed in an internationally standard manner for the mining industry. We have agreed on many things over the years and there are not many left. We are all meeting to hopefully resolve them now and finish all project preparations quickly – regulatory approvals, legal documents, security protection of our people, and project and preparation of the community.
It is to be recalled that KEFI, the gold exploration and development company with projects in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, recently provided an update reporting that the finance plan for the c.US$320 million financing of the Tulu Kapi Gold had been agreed upon in principle by the lenders, so that draft definitive agreements could be finalized for approval by syndicate members and regulators.
Minister of Mines His Excellency Habtamu Tegene during the occasion for his part remarked that “The regulatory issues remaining to be resolved are a very small subset of the many matters resolved already. And I think the very existence of this workshop demonstrates the very positive attitude of everyone. The remaining matters include central bank procedures for the project bank accounts to service the foreign debt and equity financing provided. I understand that by the time full production is happening in 2025, the foreign direct investment will have exceeded $400M on Tulu Kapi. Other regulatory matters include the direct arrangements between the banks and mine and other Ministries to provide some protection to the banks. Our objective here is to make this a 21st-century project in all respects, financing, community, environmental, social, and of course technical.
Tulu Kapi Gold mining project is located 28km east of Ayra-Gulliso town in the state of Oromia and is owned by KEFI Minerals, which formalized the Tulu Kapi Mining agreement with the Ethiopian Government. Tulu Kapi Gold Project will employ approximately 1,000 local people in 12 months and many more people indirectly. It will be perhaps the largest single export earner of the country generating over US250 million per annum of export dollars and a huge local supply requirement to feed our production operation.
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About KEFI Gold and Copper plc
KEFI is focused primarily on the advancement of its three development projects in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, plus its pipeline of highly prospective exploration projects in these two large jurisdictions of the under-explored Arabian-Nubian Shield. KEFI targets that production in Ethiopia (at Tulu Kapi Gold) and in Saudi Arabia (at Jibal Qutman Gold and then Hawiah Copper-Gold) will, in the aggregate, generate cash flows for capital repayments, further organic growth and, ultimately, dividends to shareholders. KEFI operates these projects via joint venture operating companies Tulu Kapi Gold Mines S.C in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (TKGM) and Gold and Minerals SLA in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“GMCO”). These operating companies are technically guided and supported by KEFI so that each of these operating joint venture companies as soon as possible builds the local organizational structure suitable for long-term production as well as exploration and future development opportunities. We have already appointed some of the key senior management into TKGM and GMCO and the teams are being built up as we move forward.
