Historically, Namibia has never been a gold producer of any note but this changed in 1990 when Anglo American opened the country’s first modern gold mine, Navachab (now owned by QKR Namibia). It remained the sole flag-bearer of Namibian gold mining until late 2014 when B2Gold’s Otjikoto mine poured its first gold. Both mines are still going strong and both recorded record production in 2023 – Navachab producing just over 100 koz and Otjikoto just over 200 koz of gold.
While it is unclear how many years of life Navachab has left, Otjikoto will start winding down in 2026 and will become mainly dependent on the processing of stockpiled material during its last few years of operation. Seen in this light, Twin Hills will play an important role in keeping Namibia’s gold production at – or close to – current levels.
As is well known to observers of the Namibian mining scene, the man who has driven the development of Twin Hills, Namibian-born mining engineer and entrepreneur Heye Daun, can also take credit for identifying the potential of the Otjikoto deposit.
He and his partner, Alan Friedman, acquired it from Anglovaal, which had not progressed it very far, and took it up the value curve to the point where it was attractive enough for B2Gold to make an offer for Auryx, the company founded by Daun. The offer was accepted and the rest is history. The deal was worth US$160 million – which represented a superb return given that Otjikoto had originally been acquired for just US$25 million.
Moving on from Otjikoto, Daun and Friedman established Osino Resources – which is listed on the Toronto Venture Exchange – in 2015, with the intention of finding another Otjikoto. And find it they did in 2019, when an initial diamond drilling programme following up on calcrete sampling (the first of its kind in Namibia) and shallow percussion drilling confirmed thick low-grade mineralisation at the Twin Hills site, 150 km north-west of Windhoek and about 20 km from Navachab.
Osino’s geological work was directed by geologists David Underwood and Jon Andrew, who were responsible for shifting Osino’s exploration strategy from small deposit-scale prospects to potentially much larger, districtscale prospects. This ultimately resulted in the identification of the regional scale Karibib Fault Zone and an early recognition of its large-scale mineralising system potential and the vectors that ultimately led to the discovery of the Twin Hills gold system through thick – up to 30 m – sand and calcrete cover.
The scale of the exploration effort at Twin Hills is probably without parallel in Namibia, with 225 km of RC and diamond drilling having been completed since 2019.
After the discovery, Osino fasttracked the project, releasing a PEA in 2021, a PFS in 2022 and a DFS – based on 2.2 Moz of proven and probable reserves – in June 2023. The DFS detailed a project able to produce 1.98 Moz of gold over a 13-year life with an average gold production of 162 koz in years 1 to 10 and 176 koz in years 1 to 5. The capex was estimated at US$365 million.
The project is planned as a multi-pit operation with seven pushbacks in the main pit (Twin Hills Central and Bulge) and three separate satellite pits (Clouds, Clouds West and Twin Hills West) to be mined in different phases throughout the life of mine.
The 5 Mtpa plant is based on a flowsheet that comprises three stages of crushing and screening followed by milling and size classification, gravity recovery, a carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit, carbon elution, and a gold recovery circuit.
CIL tailings will be treated in a cyanide destruction circuit followed by thickening and pressure filtration. Six months after completion of the DFS, Osino received a takeover bid from Canada’s Dundee Precious Metals, valuing the company at C$287 million.
Osino accepted the bid but a couple of months later – in February this year – announced that it had accepted a superior all-cash (C$368 million) offer from Yintai (now Shanjin).
Talking to Mining Review Africa recently, Daun, described the deal as a great outcome for both Osino and Namibia. “Shanjin has the financial resources and technical competence to take Twin Hills through to production,” he said.
“While I obviously can’t speak for Shanjin, my understanding is that it their intention is to implement the project broadly on the lines of the DFS, which they’re currently reviewing. As regards timing, Osino’s goal was to have the mine commissioned in 2026 and Shanjin has indicated that it is working to a similar timeframe.”
Shanjin has already injected US$10 million into Osino for working capital needs and operations and the reimbursement in full of the termination fee that had to be paid to Dundee after Osino elected to accept Shanjin’s offer.
Daun said that his interactions with Shanjin have left him with a very positive impression of the company. “It is 30%-owned by the Chinese state but it is almost western in the way it operates – which is probably a result of the fact that its growth has been built on the acquisition in 2016 of the Chinese gold assets of Toronto-listed Eldorado Gold, a deal which was worth US$600 million,” he says.
“It is very committed to social and environmental responsibility and I believe will construct and operate Twin Hills to the best international standards.”
He adds that Shanjin is not the first major Chinese player to enter Namibia. “Chinese companies already control two large uranium mines, Husab and Rössing, and the consensus in Namibia is that they have managed these mines extremely well,” he says.
Not only is Shanjin inheriting the Twin Hills project but also Osino’s large package of exploration tenements in the country. Its land holdings – extending over approximately 8 000 km2 – are located within Namibia’s prospective Damara sedimentary mineral belt, mostly in proximity to and along strike of the Navachab and Otjikoto mines.
Included in these tenements is the Ondundu project, which is located 130 km north-west of Twin Hills, and Eureka, approximately 35 km northeast of Ondundu. The two projects are relatively close to Wia Gold’s Kokoseb discovery, which already has a plus 2 Moz resource in place.
Ondundu was mined sporadically in the past and has been extensively drilled by various operators over the years, notably B2Gold which undertook an extensive exploration programme between 2015 and 2021, which included 119 diamond drill holes. Osino announced a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for Ondundu of 25 Mt at an average grade of 1.13 g/t Au (equating to 0.9 Moz) in October 2022, around 14 months after acquiring the project from B2Gold.
In contrast to Ondundu, Eureka has no past history of mining. Osino acquired the licence several years ago after its potential had been identified as part of a regional target generation exercise by its geologists and announced a significant discovery in August last year. One of the holes drilled at the site intercepted 47 m at 5.92g/t gold including 27 m at 8.69 g/t and 3 m at 13 g/t.
“The two licences require much more exploration but they clearly have huge potential and could ultimately result in a second mine for Shanjin,” says Daun. With the Shanjin deal now completed, an interesting question is what Daun will turn his considerable talents to next. He admits that he is still considering his options.
“Shanjin have told me that they would like my involvement in Osino’s operations to continue in some shape or form but we’ll see,” he says.
“I am a mining entrepreneur at heart and it is certainly possible that I might pursue new opportunities in Namibia or even elsewhere in Africa. Whatever the case, I’m incredibly proud of what Osino has accomplished and the big contribution it has made to Namibia’s economy.”
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