Opportunity met with three employees from SRK Consulting at the Investing in African Mining Indaba in early 2025. The conversation with SRK’s Ghana Country Manager Ivan Doku and Roanne Sutcliffe, Principal Environmental Engineer based in the company’s South Africa Practice, revolved around the shifting field of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and how SRK is partnering with local ESG consultants in the mining space.
Ghana Country Manager Ivan Doku
What work does SRK Consulting do in Ghana?
We provide services in the mining industry, ranging from exploration-related disciplines, down the mining value chain of mineral resource and mineral reserve to mine closure work which encompasses the key aspects of sustainability and ESG standards.
How many companies and mines do you work with?
We are working for about eight mining companies ranging from major mining companies like Anglo Gold right through to junior mining companies such as Kibi Gold Fields.
Is that all in gold or mixture of resources?
In the last three years it is mostly gold. We have done some work on lithium in Ghana for Atlantic Lithium and nickel in Côte D'Ivoire for World Metal Alloys,
Is lithium an important part of what Ghana has to offer?
There are significant deposits of lithium which until about a decade ago were not considered to be economically viable. The last decade has seen increased exploration activities.
Are your services commodity-neutral?
We do not narrow ourselves to a particular commodity, it is just that gold has become something that is currently booming, and everyone is chasing after it. Most of the requests we have had are related to gold. Our work outside of Ghana involves other commodities like nickel as alluded to earlier. There is an iron-ore project in Ghana where SRK is providing technical advice related to the exploration services. Likewise, iron-ore related-exploration services in Liberia.
The Simandou project in Guinea is a big one, isn’t it?
That’s a huge iron-ore deposit. I do not think we have seen its kind in a long time. It may even compare to some of the deposits in Australia. SRK was involved with Simandou up until March 2024, and has been involved for about three years. The main partnership on the project was with our UK offices, SRK Ghana provided more of the services related to the actual field work.
