Navachab has invested more than N$600 million in mining equipment since 2020 and expanded its workforce from 500 to 1,488 permanent employees, plus 598 contractors, according to Managing Director George Botshiwe.
Now the mine is moving underground.
A four-year, N$4 billion programme, approved by the board, will open up deeper ore and create 150 new jobs. Botshiwe announced the plan at the 2025 Mining Expo. He framed the move as part of a larger plan: innovate within tight utility limits, conserve water and power, empower Namibian businesses, and keep Karibib’s economy resilient well beyond the mine’s current 2042 processing horizon.
That discipline has defined Navachab’s recent turnaround. Commissioned in 1989 with 90 tonnes per hour capacity and only nine years of expected life, the mine has since produced 3 million ounces and now holds just over 5 million ounces in resources, Botshiwe said.
A review of the plan revealed approximately ten years of open-pit reserves at current output levels and, crucially, about 55 years of low-grade stockpiles—latent value that the team believed it could unlock through smarter processing.
Growth can’t rely on bigger utility rations; the site is capped at 3,500 m³/day of water from Swakopmund and 10 MW of grid power.
The team responded by re-engineering. An autogenous mill was converted to a semi-autogenous mill, the circuit was redesigned with cyclone clusters and direct screening, and plant control was automated with SCADA—lifting throughput from 150 to 210 t/h without additional water or power, he told the Expo.
Water savings have been just as decisive.
Dry-stack tailings, higher-density residues, and air-cooled systems reduce consumption from 1.3 m³/t to 0.4 m³/t, enabling near-closed-loop recycling that supports expansion within the fixed allocation.
To turn low-grade tonnes into value, Navachab installed Dense Media Separation and XRT ore sorting—becoming the first gold operation to successfully apply this combination to gold—so that marginal material can be upgraded into profitable feed.
With the plant ready to handle more, the site finished a N$1 billion expansion in late 2023—adding an ABB vertical roller mill and a Swiss Tower Mill—and lifted nameplate capacity to 550 t/h, Botshiwe reported. Production increased from 60,000 oz per year from 2015 to 2022 to 125,000 oz in 2023, with 2024 guided at 130,000–140,000 oz.
The underground programme plugs into that system rather than sitting alongside it.
By accessing higher-grade shoots beneath the current pit shell, underground ore will be blended with upgraded stockpiles to keep the expanded plant fully stocked with higher-margin tonnes, smoothing the strip-ratio swings that come with pushbacks, Botshiwe explained.
The four-year build is phased to respect the 10 MW power cap and 3,500 m³/day water limit.
Early works focus on declines and services—dewatering, ventilation, and power reticulation—followed by staged stoping blocks, allowing feed to be blended steadily into the plant.
Selective mining and tight ore control aim to minimise dilution and trucking, while the existing DMS/XRT circuit continues to act as a “dilution filter” for mixed material. Underground water will be captured and, where quality allows, treated and reintroduced into the process circuit to reduce fresh water demand, he said.
To anchor the scale in rands and cents, a rough valuation helps: using a gold price of US$2,200–US$2,400/oz and an exchange rate of N$18–N$19/US$, Navachab’s just-over-5 Moz resource implies a gross in-situ metal value of roughly N$198–N$216 billion.
The open-pit reserve runway—about ten years at today’s 130–140 koz/yr—equates to approximately 1.3–1.4 Moz, or N$51–N$64 billion gross on the same price band. These are indicative, pre-recovery, pre-cost numbers; actual economic value will be lower once recoveries, dilution, opex/capex, royalties and taxes are applied.
People and local content sit at the centre of the strategy. The build will add 150 jobs, including training pipelines for Namibian operators, artisans, geotechnicians, and planners, Botshiwe said.
It also opens new scopes for local suppliers—ground support, raise-boring, instrumentation, ventilation fans, and electricals—on top of Navachab’s 2024 record, in which 84% of N$2.5 billion was spent on Namibian companies.
SMEs such as CODO and Mintaka have already secured contracts worth tens of millions, and where credible firms require it, the mine has stepped in to help them finance equipment, enabling them to scale into larger underground packages, he noted.
The community footprint is expanding in tandem with it. Recent corporate social investments include drilling 12 elephant-proof boreholes, building classrooms and traffic lights in Karibib, constructing a mortuary in Otjimbingwe, electrifying informal settlements, and preparing an SME park and a fire truck for Usakos, according to the company.
Construction is set to begin on an N$80 million medical facility in Karibib (Phase 1: N$20 million), with private partners pledging solar panels and medical equipment.
Livelihood projects range from the Golden Egg SME mentorship and funding scheme to the Karaku livestock initiative, the Karibib Women’s Garden Project and the Otjimbingwe Agri-Park.
Navachab is also planning for life after mining.
To avoid a hollowed-out town when the ore runs out, the “From a House to a Home” programme is selling company-owned houses to employees, anchoring families in Karibib for the long term, Botshiwe said.
“We have to be intentional, deliberate, and even biased in promoting our local entrepreneurs,” he added. “If we don’t, we’ll be having the same conversations about ownership quotas for years to come.”
Note: All operational, investment, procurement, jobs and community figures were as presented by George Botshiwe, Managing Director of QKR Navachab Gold Mine, during his address at the 2025 Mining Expo.
Gross in-situ value estimates are the writer’s own, derived from the stated resources using indicative market prices and FX at the time of writing.
