The Namibia Chamber of Mines is set to host its yearly mining expo and conference on May 20 and May 21.

Hosted at the Safari hotel in Windhoek, the theme of the conference is ‘Mining Industry – A catalyst for Vision 2030’, with the discussions to cover various key topics in the mining industry.

Following the Chamber’s December 2014 newsletter in which he discussed the Namibian mining sector’s mixed fortunes, Namibia Chamber of Mines CEO Veston Malango will provide an industry review titled ‘Mining Industry Performance and Challenges during 2014’, while the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) chief inspector of mines Mathews Amunghete will address the goal of mine safety in a talk titled ‘Mine Safety – Driving zero harm in the mining industry’.

Also from the MME, permanent secretary Kahijoro Kahuure in his capacity as the chairperson of the Joint Value Addition Committee will provide a half hour presentation on the committee’s Phase 2 report.

Meanwhile, Namibia power utility NamPower MD Paulinus Shilamba will discuss the security of the country’s power supply in a briefing on NamPower’s status.

The event will also be spearheaded by a number of talks on particular mining projects by corporate personnel from some of Namibia’s biggest mines including Vancouver-owned gold producers B2Gold Namibia, uranium producers Swakop Uranium, copper producers Weatherly International, diamond producers Namdeb and Indian-owned zinc producers Skorpion.

The topics of the talks include the commissioning of the Otjikoto gold mine by B2Gold Namibia MD Bill Lytle; the development of Husab mine by Swakop Uranium CEO Zheng Keping and senior VP Deon Garber; adding value to the Tschudi copper mine by Weatherly Mining Namibia MD Craig Thomas; Namdeb’s reinvestment projects by Namdeb GM Riaan Burger and the conversion of Skorpion zinc refinery by Skorpion GM Prasad Suryarao.

Further presentations include a talk by the manager of Namdeb’s Red Area Complex Wollen Nell titled ‘Mining and Gender – Promoting women in mining’ and a presentation titled ‘Uranium Nuclear Fuel Cycle – How far can Namibia go?’ given by Professor Helmult Mischo from Germany’s Freiberg University of Mining.

In addition to the scheduled talks the event will also involve panel discussions.

The two-day event has free registration and participation and the Chamber of Mines invites all stakeholders to participate.