Namibia had no power to cancel Chinese miner's licence, court rules
Namibia's mines minister did not have the power to cancel a Chinese lithium miner's licence and should have approached the courts to revoke it, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
Lithium miner Xinfeng took Namibia's mines minister Tom Alweendo to court after he cancelled the company's mining licence in April and ordered it to stop operations by May 31. The minister accused the company of obtaining the licence after a flawed application process.
Xinfeng challenged the minister's decision in Namibia's High Court, arguing that Alweendo did not have the power to revoke his earlier decision to grant the mining licence.
"The first respondent (mines minister) did not have the power to revoke the mining licence without the express or implied authority to do so under the governing legislation, but was required to approach the courts for an appropriate relief," Acting High Court Judge Ramon Maasdorp ruled.
The mines ministry and Xinfeng were not immediately available to comment.
Last October, the Namibian government banned Xinfeng from exporting lithium ore to China, saying the shipments were irregular. Xinfeng denied the allegations, saying it had shipped 75,000 metric tons of lithium ore to its Chinese headquarters for tests to determine the design of a lithium processing plant in Namibia.
On June 8, Namibia banned the export of unprocessed lithium and other critical minerals as it seeks to encourage local processing and profit from growing global demand for metals used in clean energy technologies.
The southern African country has significant deposits of lithium, vital for renewable energy storage, as well as rare earth minerals such as dysprosium and terbium needed for permanent magnets in the batteries of electric cars and wind turbines.
Comments
Research Reports
Projects
Latest Multimedia
Latest News
Showroom
Booyco Electronics, South African pioneer of Proximity Detection Systems, offers safety solutions for underground and surface mining, quarrying,...
VISIT SHOWROOM
Weir Minerals Europe, Middle East and Africa is a global supplier of excellent minerals solutions, including pumps, valves, hydrocyclones,...
VISIT SHOWROOM
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation
