The Navachab Gold Mine is an

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

gold mine Gold Mine may refer to: * Gold Mine (board game) *Gold Mine (Long Beach), an arena *"Gold Mine", a song by Joyner Lucas from the 2020 album ''ADHD Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characteri ...

situated near

Karibib , nickname = , settlement_type = Town , motto = , image_skyline =Karibib aerial view.jpg , imagesize =300 , image_caption =Karibib aerial view 2017 , image_flag = , ...

, in the

Erongo Region Erongo is one of the 14 regions of Namibia. The capital is Swakopmund. It is named after Mount Erongo, a well-known landmark in Namibia and in this area. Erongo contains the municipalities of Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Henties Bay and Omaruru, as ...

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. The operation is owned by QKR.
QKR website, accessed: 8 July 2014 Navachab, the oldest gold mine in Namibia, takes its name from the local Navachab farm, which the gold deposit was found beneath. The deposit is located 6 km south of the

Okahandja Okahandja is a city of 24,100 inhabitants in Otjozondjupa Region, central Namibia, and the district capital of the Okahandja electoral constituency. It is known as the ''Garden Town of Namibia''. It is located 70 km north of Windhoek on the ...

Swakopmund Swakopmund (german: Mouth of the Swakop) is a city on the coast of western Namibia, west of the Namibian capital Windhoek via the B2 main road. It is the capital of the Erongo administrative district. The town has 44,725 inhabitants and covers ...

road.

History

The first gold discoveries in Namibia were made in 1899. Gold mining begun in the country in 1933 but was later abandoned again because of low grades.Country report: Namibia
AngloGold Ashanti website, accessed: 8 August 2010 The Navachab gold deposit was discovered in October 1984 as a result of an exploration programme conducted. An appraisal was carried out in 1986, followed by feasibility study in 1987, which decided to proceed with the development of the mine. Construction work at the site began in 1988 and was completed within 21 months. Production started at Navachab in 1989, pouring its first gold bar in December 1989. Originally jointly owned by the ''Erongo Exploration and Mining Company'' (70%), the ''Metal Mining Company of Canada'' (20%) and ''Rand Mines Exploration'', AngloGold acquired a 70% interest in the mine in 1998, which it increased to a 100% the following year. In 2004, AngloGold and Ashanti merged to form AngloGold Ashanti. The mine is no longer the only gold mine in Namibia. In 2003, the AngloGold made the decision to switch to owner-mining instead of using contractors. The decision was made after the life of the mine could be extended considerably. It was later claimed by some former contract employees that they had been promised permanent jobs with AngloGold after the switch but not received them. In 2009, the mine employed 578 people, all of which were permanent employees.Annual Report 2009
AngloGold Ashanti website, accessed: 27 July 2010 For the first time since the start of operations at Navachab, the mine experienced a fatal accident on 2 June 2009 when a drill-rig operator was fatally injured. Navachab was acquired by QKR from

AngloGold Ashanti AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a global gold mining company. It was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. It is now a global gold producer with 21 operations on four continents. The company is listed ...

in June 2014. QKR is owned mostly by the

Qatar Investment Authority The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA; ar, جهاز قطر للإستثمار) is Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes. In 202 ...

's ''Qatar Holding LLC'' and

Kulczyk Investments Kulczyk Investments SA (former Kulczyk Investment House SA) is an international investment company, founded by Polish entrepreneur Jan Kulczyk in 2007, focusing on business opportunities in high-growth markets. The company's strategic sectors ar ...

Production

Production figures of the recent past were:

References

External links

AngloGold Ashanti website

''Secretariat of the

African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) is a group of countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific that was created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975. Formerly known as African, Caribbean and Pacific Group o ...

website''
Gold
Geological Survey of Namibia website
Controls of gold-quartz vein formation during regional folding in amphibolite-facies, marble-dominated metasediments of the Navachab Gold Mine in the Pan-African Damara Belt, Namibia
{{AngloGold Ashanti Gold mines in Namibia Surface mines in Namibia AngloGold Ashanti Buildings and structures in Erongo Region 1989 establishments in South West Africa