Zimbabwe’s hopes of raising mineral contribution to the economy from the current $2,4 billion to $12 billion per annum by 2023 has received a major boost following the coming on board of a Canadian based Polaris Seismic International Limited to further explore the country’s geology.
Speaking at the official unveiling of Polaris Geophysics Zimbabwe yesterday, Minister of Mines and Mining Development Winstone Chitando alluded that the country has been using old techniques to explore minerals resulting in limited discoveries over decades.
“Only 60 percent of the country’s land has been mapped for exploration but the use of old techniques and machinery could not allow for notable discoveries,” said Chitando.
He welcomed the Canadian investors, pinning hopes on the anticipated results to raise mineral contribution to the economy.
“With Polaris’ state of the art equipment on under-explored land, we believe positive results are inevitable and hopefully with those results, the vision of having mineral contribution to the economy raised from $2,4 billion where it is now to $12 billion by 2023 will come to life,” said Chitando.
Speaking at the same event, Polaris president, Bill Mooney said they will employ the most advanced equipment in their exploration work while remaining conscious of IOGP 432 guidelines which cover occupational health and safety, security, social responsibility and environmental aspects of geophysical industry contracts.
“I have already been on the ground and conducted some surveys. We use advanced machinery which encompasses complete project management of all aspects of 2D and 3D seismic acquisition on land, in transition zones and shallow water. We will be equal to the task.
“While conducting our work, we maintain the guidelines stipulated by IOGP 423, our company is conscious of health and environment preservation,” said Mooney.
Polaris is an International seismic company of Canadian roots and has made a mark for working in the most rugged terrains.
The company’s first African project was in Tanzania where the company exploited methods that minimized environmental degradation during mineral exploration.
