A True Partnership
Tanzanian Royalty Goes 55/45 With Tanzania on the Buckreef Gold Project
By Kevin Michael Grace and Ted Niles

Editor’s Note: Since our interview with David Duval, he has left Tanzanian Royalty.

As the tide of “resource nationalism” swells throughout the world, foreign mining companies are increasingly fighting rearguard battles with their host countries. Tanzanian Royalty TSX:TNX decided to employ a different strategy with its Buckreef Gold Project in Tanzania. David Duval, special advisor to President Jim Sinclair, explains, “We did a deal on it [in 2010] and allowed the government to keep 45%. I think in a sense we almost sort of nationalized ourselves by giving the government a large piece of the action.”

Buckreef and the company’s other projects are located in the Lake Victoria Goldfields, a historic producer in East Africa. Other companies currently active in the region are Barrick TSX:ABX, AngloGold Ashanti and Golden Eagle. Buckreef “had been explored by a number of different operators over the past decade or more,” Duval says. “The last one was IAMGOLD TSX:IMG. They actually did a fair amount of drilling on the thing. During the global financial crisis in 2008, they ended up in some financial difficulties and abandoned a number of projects in Africa.”

Read more about Tanzanian Royalty's partnership agreement.