British company Panthera Resources Plc announced that its affiliate, Moydow Holdings Limited (Moydow), has begun drilling at its Paimasa project in Nigeria, the Senior Times reported.
Panthera has a diversified portfolio of gold exploration and development projects in West Africa and India.
The Paimasa project is located in central Nigeria, about 115 kilometers northwest of the capital abuja.
Moydow previously drilled in an area near the Dagma exploration area (45km NW), which resulted in the discovery of significant gold mineralisation in a vein of stone discovered by artisanal miners.
Highlights of the project include extensive artisan mining activities on several parallel quartz veins.
Panthera said the drilling began through Moydow's joint venture, Gurara Holdings Limited (Gurara).
Moydow currently owns a 20 per cent stake in the joint venture, Gurara, which has a wholly owned Paimasa project licence, as well as two other nearby projects, Dagma and Dext.
The disclosure said Moydow would take up to 65 per cent of the joint venture if it completed some project disbursements by July 2023.
Like the oil and gas sector, solid minerals are on Nigeria's exclusive list and all revenues generated from them go into the Federal account, which is shared by the three levels of government.
Similarly, the 13% Derivation principle applies to solid minerals.
This means that 13 percent of the revenue the federal accounts receive from any natural resource goes to the states that exploit it.
However, unlike the oil and gas business, in which the government is fully involved through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the involvement of the solid minerals business is largely private sector led.
Under the Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act, the management of mining rights is the sole responsibility of the Federal Government, which issues solid mineral mining licenses through the Office of The Cadastre of the Mines (MCO).
Licensed companies in the solid mineral sector contribute revenue to the National Federal account in the form of royalties, licenses, fines, taxes (value-added tax, CIT/WHT, CGT, EDT), etc.
Despite these rules, illegal mining activity has been reported across Nigeria -- most recently in Osun State.
In July, the Nigerian government said it had produced its first hand-mined gold, processed and refined to The Standards of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), in June 2020.
The LBMA is a requirement for Nigeria's central bank to use gold as a reserve tool.
The Nigerian government said at the time that the central bank would buy gold mined, processed and refined under the President's artisanal gold mine development programme as part of Nigeria's external reserves.
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