When Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser stood on the steps of the Alexandria Stock Exchange in July 1956 and declared that he was going to nationalize the Suez Canal, a young geology student at Alexandria University by the name of Sami El-Raghy decided to pursue his career elsewhere.
The geologist emigrated to Australia in the 1960s, arriving just in time for the nickel boom, and worked for companies like Asarco and Chevron Minerals. He also built a company called Normandy Mining, before buying a moribund miner called Centamin, which had a couple of projects in Western Australia, and listed on the ASX in 1970.
El-Raghy was looking for new properties that he could fold into Centamin’s portfolio when, during a trip home to Egypt to visit his mother, he had dinner with one of his old geology professors, who advised him to look for projects in Egypt. The young geologist began his search at the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority, one of the oldest of its kind in the world.
Read the entire story at The Northern Miner.
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