Muscat: The Public Authority for Mining affirmed that what was announced by Australian mining company Savannah about the presence of large amounts of gold in Oman were only preliminary results for superficial exploratory samples in North Batinah governorate.
Hilal Al Busaidi, the chief executive officer of the mining authority, told Shabiba, a daily local newspaper, that such discovery cannot be deemed economically significant until the discoveries are confirmed and their commercial feasibility assessed.
Al Busiadi added the mining authority summoned those in charge of Savanah company to discuss the discovery to get final results on the feasibility of these discoveries.
He pointed out that according to the law and the contracts signed with mining companies, the initial declaration must be issued by the mining authority first and later those companies can announce their results in the mining operations.
Al Busaidi explained the company should return to the mining authority before announcing that, stressing the authority will deal with any violations carried out by the company or other companies winning contracts for utilisation in the mining field.
“There are other discoveries of gold and copper in some governorates with commercial quantities”, said Al Busaidi.
Al Busaidi affirmed the authority will take actions to save the interests of the sultanate in case of the possibility of exploiting gold commercially.
Meanwhile, the gold discovery announcement by the Australian company went viral on the social media.
Many called on authorities to exploit that in the right proper way as it’s a national wealth.
Oman has vast mineral resources including chromite, copper, dolomite, zinc, limestone, marble, gypsum, silicon, gold, cobalt and iron.
Mining sector is considered as a promising sector to national economic diversification, contributing of more than OMR100 million (Dh954 million) to the states coffer last year.
