February 6th ASGM forum targeting small scale gold miners, engineers, potential investors

With the country’s gold mining sector continuing to hold its own in an economy that is now driven overwhelmingly by its oil bonanza, the advent of the privately-owned sector support entity, Artisanal Small Gold Miners, Guyana (ASGM), seeks to broaden the technical support base available to a sector that still remains close to the ‘top of the pile’ in terms of its value to the country’s overall economy. A recent conversation between the Stabroek Business and ASGM Chief Executive Officer, John Applewhite-Hercules revealed that the country’s goldmining sector has become so diverse that there is ample room for a private sector input that can complement the designated state agency in providing valued services to the sector.

On Tuesday, February 6th, the ASGM takes its first ‘tilt’ at knowledge-sharing, combining the formal launch of the new entity with the execution of a Mining Symposium for Artisanal Small and Medium Scale Miners, Engineers and potential investors. The event will be staged at the El Adonai Banquet Hall and Conference Center, situated at 47 Sheriff and Garnett streets Campbelville, as part of its launch programme, the overall proceedings commencing at 08:30 hours. Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat and other officials of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission as well as miners and mining administrators have been invited to attend the event.

John Applewhite-Hercules Applewhite-Hercules says that he intends to put the services of ASGM at the services of both the public and private sectors. During an interview with the Stabroek Business last weekend, Applewhite-Hercules, himself a former senior GGMC functionary, who holds a Bachelors’ Degree in Civil Engineering and Geology from the University of Guyana and a Masters’ Degree in Mineral Resources from the University of Queensland, in Australia, disclosed that part of the focus of the forum will be on broadening the knowledge base of “Artisanal Small and Medium Scale Miners’ as well as engineers and investors in the sector” in order to enable them to accomplish full compliance with the rules and regulations governing operating in the mining sector while positioning them to make their involvement in the sector profitable.

ASGM’s focus, according to its Chief Executive Officer, will be on providing “training and specialized advice” in areas that include the application of “Geochemistry and Ground Electromagnetics Surveys” and “three-dimensional models” for “critical mineral targets.” Applewhite-Hercules says that Tuesday’s forum will also embrace issues that include mineral property valuation, mine-financing and Venture Capital as well as “undertaking electromagnetics surveys and three-dimensional models for gold, critical mineral targets and Geotechnical/Geo Environmental Hazard mapping and monitoring applications.” During the extended interview with the Stabroek Business, Applewhite-Hercules said that while he believed that the establishment of the ASGM was “in itself a worthwhile venture” he had been ‘guided’ in that direction by observations that he had made about “critical issues and challenges” affecting the sector including “miners and investors…… struggling to meet the demands and challenges” of what he described as “the lucrative business of mining.”

Part of the focus of ASGM will be “to advise miners and investors who come to us for advice or any of our various consultancy services about the importance of understanding and working within the rules that govern mining. Life can become needlessly complicated when miners become indifferent to living within rules and following procedures,” he said, adding that ASGM will also provide those persons that engage the company advice “on the issue of staying within the rules and procedures,” Applewhite-Hercules told the Stabroek Business. According to Applewhite-Hercules, ASGM is also equipped to provide “critical advice that help miners and investors in relation to “making investment decisions that are supported by facts and data” as well as persons who might be interested in “getting networked with a highly skilled team of local and international professionals who can guide, help finance and otherwise support their mining project.”