I don’t know why there’s been so much public outcry over the case of the company that received USD 5 million from the United States to conduct geological exploration for antimony ore in Luke, Kriva Palanka region, as if the mine will be built tomorrow. They don’t even have a permit yet. First they need to investigate, come to us with the documents, and we can give them a permit for exploration, said Macedonian Minister of Energy, Mining and Mineral Resources, Sanja Bozhinovska, at a press briefing earlier this week.
Pella Global Limited and DFC (U.S. International Development Finance Corporation) signed an agreement in Washington in early April for financial support in the amount of USD 5 million, intended for the exploration of critical minerals in Macedonia, which was also reported by Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, announcing that antimony will be exploited from the Kriva Palanka region and brought to the United States, as part of the Strategic Dialogue with the United States.
Pella Global Limited is a company owned by Australian businessman of Macedonian origin, Nick Jovanovski, who is also the company’s CEO, and whose main strategic goal is to find gold, silver and antimony in Macedonia. The company has its own firm in Macedonia, RI Energetika Pella Skopje.
The same company has received a concession in 2015 for geological exploration of copper, gold, lead and zinc, at a neighboring location, with a total area of 30 square kilometers. There are two locations on the concession land for copper and silver and lead zinc – the Samar site, and the second is Krstov Dol, which is for mining antimony. The ministry suggested to the concession company to investigate further because they believed that there was a richer ore deposit there than what previous research had shown.
