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Devki Steel Mills Limited has applied for a licence to mine iron ore over 29.83 square kilometres in Taita Taveta County, moving the steelmaker a step closer to supplying its own raw material from the Coast.
The application, number ML/2026/0446, was published by Mining Cabinet Secretary Hassan Joho in the Kenya Gazette of October 16. It covers 139 cadastral blocks, an area of about 7,370 acres, and lists iron ore as the only mineral sought.
The notice gives anyone, including a community, 42 days to object, which runs to around November 27. Objections go to the Cabinet Secretary at the Ministry of Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs, and the application can be viewed on the ministry’s online mining cadastre.
What the application covers
The schedule in the gazette sets out the boundary of the proposed licence area by coordinates, lying roughly between latitudes 3°13′ and 3°15′ south and longitudes 38°08′ and 38°12′ east. It also marks out an exclusion zone inside that boundary, a smaller block that would not form part of the licence.
Under the Mining Act, a mining licence is the permit that allows a company to extract and sell minerals, as opposed to a prospecting licence, which covers exploration only. The gazette notice is the stage at which the public is asked to comment before the ministry decides.
The Kishushe consent
The application follows a dispute over access to the iron ore at Kishushe Ranch. Earlier this year, shareholders of the Kishushe Ranching Cooperative Society gave Devki Group consent to proceed with iron ore mining on the ranch at a special general meeting attended by Mining Principal Secretary Harry Kimtai.
At that meeting, Mr Kimtai said the Mining Act requires every mining company to set up a Community Development Agreement Committee within six months of starting operations, and to pay one per cent of its gross revenue to the host community. “The one per cent belongs to the community. It is their right,” he said.
Devki chairman Narendra Raval told the meeting the company would comply fully with the law.
The gazette notice does not say whether the licence area is the same land covered by the Kishushe consent.
The Manga plant
The iron ore would feed Devki’s processing plant near Kishushe, which the Kenya News Agency has put at about KSh11 billion. The plant turns iron ore into inputs for steelmaking, which would cut the need to export raw ore and import finished steel.
“This is where the difference begins. For the first time, the resource and the industry are in the same place,” Taita Taveta Governor Andrew Mwadime said at the plant’s groundbreaking.
President William Ruto, who commissioned the plant, tied it to the government’s target of raising manufacturing to 15 per cent of GDP by 2027.
What happens next
Once the 42 days lapse, the ministry will consider any objections before deciding whether to grant the licence. The notice does not give the planned output, the expected life of the mine or the investment involved.
Mining disputes in Taita Taveta have often centred on compensation and benefit-sharing, and the one per cent community payment will apply if the licence is granted. The ministry has taken a firm line with licence holders this year. It suspended Tata Chemicals Magadi’s soda ash operations on July 28, a shutdown the company says affects more than 1,000 livelihoods.
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