As commodity prices, tumble, and investors pull back at a time of political and regulatory uncertainty, a shrinking pool of funding is left for small – medium sized mining companies leaving them vulnerable and struggle to secure funding from traditional sources. In addition to this, the other challenges are mainly operational;
- Lack of training in proper small scale mining methods (geology, exploration, mining, funding, marketing).
- Interferences with Government and land rights holders.
- Lack of access to traditional funding (due to inability to provide feasibility studies / business plan and to lack of collaterals for loans – mineral rights cannot be used as collaterals.
- Lack of beneficiation and access to key international markets.
Significant investment opportunities exist whilst addressing above challenges in the small – medium sized mining sectors i.e. Gold, Lithium, Manganese, Chromium and Gemstones, as these mines can be highly profitable and scalable but larger mining organizations find their operations challenging.
