Chekinah Olivier, founder of OL Mining Inc., offers companies in the mining sector a map of natural resources. A tool for both companies and governments.
Where should mining companies invest? Techniques have evolved over the last few centuries. If certain countries, such as Canada, now provide mining companies with modern tools, such as geographical maps of the mining potential for each substance, active mines and mining projects, many areas in the world today are cruelly lacking in relevant information. This is the case of Africa and more particularly of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This country “has enormous potential”, indicates Chekinah Olivier, founder and CEO of the company OL Mining Inc., who qualifies by recalling that “the only reliable information and records that we still have today date from the colonial era , and are obviously not complete”. The Canadian entrepreneur of Congolese origin relied on this postulate to establish a map of all the natural resources abounding in African countries and more generally in developing countries.
The delay taken by certain governments, particularly African ones, poses a problem: States are “confronted with the need to quantify deposits, to better negotiate what belongs to them”. And this is even more true for the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the basements are full of diamonds, gold, copper and even cobalt. A subsoil that makes Congo one of the richest countries in the world. But beyond the potential, it is in the defense of its interests that the country has shortcomings. The resolution of this equation lies in the national policy decided by the country’s authorities, but also through a better knowledge of its resources. However, detailed mapping could be a solution. “The tragedy is that this large mapping enterprise, essential to the DRC, is struggling today to move forward, because we do not have sufficient support from the local authorities,” laments Chekinah Olivier, who admits that “The services do not understand the importance of this essential project for the country.”
Chekinah Olivier: “Let governments have all the cards in hand to negotiate with multinationals”
However, the project of the founder of OL Mining Inc. should impose itself. Particularly thanks to the seriousness of the work carried out. OL Mining does everything to “unlock and open up the potential of Africa and developing countries by carrying out the most exhaustive inventory possible of what is available and can be exploited”. And, to do this, the Canadian company has joined forces with the Spanish company Xcalibur Multiphysics, the world number one in the field. Result: the two groups worked hard to establish this famous “mapping of all the natural resources that African countries abound”. A particularly interesting project for private mining companies who want to secure their investments, but also “for governments to have all the cards in hand to negotiate with mining or energy multinationals”, summarizes Chekinah Olivier.
The work might seem simple, as it is so common in other areas of the world. However, it was necessary to make a real “big gap in terms of methodology between mapping carried out in the field by Belgian geologists in the first half of the twentieth century and a photographic analysis of the identified sites, carried out using satellites”, indicates Chekinah Olivier , which was able to rely on the expertise of Satellite imagery, altimeter data… All of this will undeniably facilitate feasibility studies and resource calculations for private mining companies and governments.
