Bosai continues to hoard bauxite deposit areas without development

Apr 06, 2018 News

…as other investors being turned away
While the line of potential investors with interest in bauxite gets longer, Bosai Minerals Group (Guyana) Inc. continues to hold on to several areas of bauxite deposits that it is not developing.
Sources say that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) continues to engage Bosai on the issue, but efforts on the part of GGMC seem to not be enough to effect a change in the status quo.
The agreement that Omai Bauxite Mining Inc. had with the Government gave the company the right to “first refusal.” This provision in the contract gives the holding company the right to have first preference on any area of bauxite deposit. Bosai inherited that agreement from Omai.
Kaieteur News understands that over the last few years, applications were made by local and foreign companies to access bauxite deposits located in areas at Wismar, Region Ten. The response given to all these companies is that Bosai has the right to first refusal and has chosen to keep the area.
A source close to GGMC explained that the way “right to first refusal” is supposed to work is, whoever owns the right to first refusal, when exercising that right, is supposed to propose to develop the area it chooses to keep.
It was pointed out that once interest is expressed in an area, the right to first refusal can only be exercised if the company that holds that right is willing to develop the area of interest in a reasonable timeframe.
The source said that GGMC is supposed to ask Bosai if it wants to develop a mine in the area. If the company says yes, GGMC is supposed to hold the company to a “reasonable timeframe. But, invariably Bosai has been saying “yes, yes, we want to, but they never do develop the area. And, GGMC has been allowing the company to get away with this.’”
Sources at GGMC said that the Commission has been “trying its best” to bring a resolution to the situation. But to no avail.
This newspaper understands that an application was turned down two months ago and another was turned down in recent weeks.

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