Truvé Real leads the consortium advancing the Lomié-Nkamouna nickel-cobalt-manganese project in East Region, Cameroon — assembled by a Cameroonian-American founding team with ancestral ties to the region, and delivered by technical partners with decades of African mining experience.
"Lomié-Nkamouna isn't an asset on a map to us. It's home ground."
Truvé was founded by Hermine Ngnomire, a U.S. citizen and Cameroonian national with an ancestral connection to the Lomié-Nkamouna region, alongside Alphonse Otsamzok, a fellow Cameroonian and co-founder who leads government relations across Central Africa. Their connection to East Region isn't a talking point — it's the reason this project exists inside a platform built to keep value, jobs, and decision-making close to the ground it comes from.
That local grounding is paired with a technical bench sourced from some of the most experienced mining engineering and metallurgical firms working in Africa today — because local roots and world-class execution aren't a trade-off.
U.S. citizen and Cameroonian national. Ancestral connection to the Lomié-Nkamouna region. Leads consortium strategy, capital structuring, and sovereign relationships.
Cameroonian national, based in Yaoundé. Leads government and regional relationship-building across Central Africa, including engagement with Cameroonian mining authorities.
A laterite-hosted nickel-cobalt-manganese deposit in East Region, Cameroon, approximately 30 km northeast of Lomié — one of the largest undeveloped cobalt-bearing deposits in the world, with roughly 90% of the concession area still unexplored. Also known in the historical record as the Nkamouna project.
| Category | Tonnage (Mt) | Co % | Ni % | Mn % | Contained Co (kt) | Contained Ni (kt) | Contained Mn (kt) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measured | 59.8 | 0.24 | 0.68 | 1.37 | 144.0 | 407.0 | 819.3 |
| Indicated | 60.8 | 0.22 | 0.62 | 1.32 | 134.0 | 377.0 | 802.6 |
| Measured & Indicated | 120.6 | 0.23 | 0.65 | 1.35 | 277.3 | 783.6 | 1,621.9 |
| Inferred | 202.5 | 0.20 | 0.59 | 1.20 | 405.0 | 1,195.0 | 2,430.0 |
| Total Resource | 323.3 | 0.21 | 0.61 | 1.26 | 682.4 | 1,978.6 | 4,051.9 |
Source: SRK Consulting (U.S.), Inc., NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Nkamouna and Mada Deposits (effective December 31, 2010; filed with the U.S. SEC, June 2011), incorporating the October 2009 resource update. Reported at a 0.12% Co cut-off for ferralite and 0.23% Co cut-off for breccia mineralization, per CIM Estimation Best Practices Guidelines. This is historical, third-party data prepared under a prior operator and has not been independently verified by Truvé. Contained manganese figures are derived arithmetically from the reported tonnages and grades and are not separately stated in the historical report. A resource update and Bankable Feasibility Study are planned as the first post-award technical work items.
Truvé submitted its Expression of Interest to SONAMINES on March 30, 2026, as consortium lead, in response to the January 2026 international call for technical-financial partners (AIMI). The consortium was completed in April 2026 within the extension granted by SONAMINES. The state-led selection process is ongoing.
No concession has been awarded, no project financing has been secured, and no Bankable Feasibility Study has been completed. All project descriptions on this page reflect current plans and are subject to change as the process advances.
Truvé's proposed route produces MHP — a chemically refined product. Physical pre-concentration methods (crushing, gravity or magnetic separation) upgrade the ore into a mineral concentrate, but the metal never leaves its native mineral structure — that chemistry, and the value it creates, still has to happen somewhere downstream. MHP means that chemical extraction step has already happened before the product ever leaves Cameroon. This is not new or experimental technology — it's a process class that has been operated commercially and refined over years of real-world use in African laterite and copper-cobalt processing.
What's specific to Lomié-Nkamouna is applying that established technology to this ore body. A dedicated whole-ore testwork program is planned as the first technical work item following concession award, to confirm site-specific process parameters ahead of a Bankable Feasibility Study — standard practice for bringing a proven process to a new deposit, not a sign the underlying technology is unproven.
A commercial-scale operation producing the same refined output — MHP — from laterite-adjacent ore, using a comparable reductive leach process.
Dr. Yeonuk Choi and Dr. Peter Kondos provide independent metallurgical validation at each stage of process design, ahead of Bankable Feasibility Study submission.
Cameroon's 2023 Mining Code provides investment incentives for operators who build local processing and refining capacity, not just extraction. Truvé's development plan is built around that principle from day one.
Many development plans for laterite deposits like Lomié-Nkamouna are built around physical pre-concentration alone — crushing, washing, and gravity or magnetic separation to produce a bulk mineral concentrate. That approach can lower upfront capital costs, but the core chemistry — and the value it creates — happens downstream, outside Cameroon. Truvé's proposed route performs that chemical refining step inside Cameroon, producing Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP), a concentrated, higher-value intermediate, rather than exporting bulk concentrate for refining elsewhere.
| Physical Pre-Concentration | Local Chemical Refining (Truvé's Approach) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it produces | A bulk mineral concentrate — crushed and gravity/magnetically sorted ore | Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP), a concentrated Ni-Co chemical intermediate |
| Where the chemistry happens | Downstream, outside Cameroon | Inside Cameroon |
| Export volume vs. mined tonnage | High — most of the mined material is exported as concentrate | Low — a small fraction of mined tonnage, chemically concentrated |
| In-country value capture | Limited to mining and initial sorting | Extends through the core chemical refining step |
General comparison of processing approaches for laterite nickel-cobalt deposits; presented for illustrative purposes and not a comparison to any specific competing proposal.
Lomié-Nkamouna has a well-documented history. Truvé's role is to bring a stalled, thoroughly studied asset into development — not to start from zero.
The deposit is identified and systematically explored — more than 2,500 test pits and 23 drill holes — leading to the creation of Geovic Cameroon PLC (GeoCam) as the project's Cameroonian operating subsidiary.
Mining Permit No. 33 is awarded to GeoCam for an initial 25-year term by Cameroonian government decree.
GeoCam's parent company completes a Toronto Stock Exchange listing. Cameroon's sovereign wealth fund (SNI) makes a direct investment in GeoCam.
SRK Consulting completes an NI 43-101 technical report; a feasibility-level study is completed with Lycopodium Minerals and Knight Piésold, forming the resource basis still referenced today.
A proposed sale of the project does not proceed, and subsequent capital constraints and ownership changes leave the deposit undeveloped despite the completed feasibility work.
The Cameroonian government withdraws Mining Permit No. 33 by presidential decree, citing more than two decades without exploitation, and returns the concession to state control under SONAMINES, the national mining corporation.
SONAMINES launches an international call for technical-financial partners (AIMI) to develop and operate the deposit — a new, state-led selection process open to qualified companies worldwide.
Truvé submits its Expression of Interest on March 30, 2026, as consortium lead; completes its consortium in April 2026 within the extension granted by SONAMINES. The sovereign selection process is ongoing.
Following concession award and financial close, Truvé's modular build approach targets first output within 18 months of a locked process design — modules fabricated off-site while financing and permitting run in parallel.
Readers researching this project online may encounter materials published by entities associated with the concession's former operator, describing plans to "restart" the project. For clarity, the public record is as follows: the former operator's mining permit was withdrawn by presidential decree in February 2025 after more than two decades without production; the concession was returned to the control of the State of Cameroon under SONAMINES; and in January 2026 SONAMINES opened a new international selection process for technical-financial partners.
The Lomié-Nkamouna concession is allocated exclusively through that state-led process. Truvé participates in it as consortium lead. No prior-era permit, plan, or claim supersedes the sovereign process now underway.
Cameroon's December 2023 Mining Code mandates a minimum 10% free-carried interest for SONAMINES in concessions of this type. Truvé's proposal is structured to fully comply with — and exceed — this requirement.
Consistent with SONAMINES's AIMI qualification criteria, Truvé intends to establish a Cameroonian-domiciled entity to hold any awarded concession and to define a formal skills-transfer policy for the national workforce.
Health Equity Holdings, Inc. DBA Truvé is a Delaware corporation operating under public benefit principles. Federal contractor registration is in process, with a UEI and CAGE Code pending assignment via SAM.gov.
Truvé leads as consortium sponsor and concession applicant. Engineering, metallurgy, and legal execution are carried by named partners with direct, verifiable experience in African critical minerals.
The consortium's engineering and technical operations are carried by a partner with decades of African project delivery, one of the deepest hydrometallurgical benches working on the continent, and direct precedent in the region's reductive-leach processing — committed to the project through a 546-page technical submission in the consortium's dossier.
Toronto-based. Dr. Yeonuk Choi and Dr. Peter Kondos bring 70+ combined years across Barrick Gold, Vale/Inco, Falconbridge, and KGHM.
Colorado-based mining and corporate counsel supporting transaction structuring and compliance.
Hermine Ngnomire and Alphonse Otsamzok lead the consortium — see Our Story above.
Because our founding team's own roots are in the region, community benefit isn't a compliance checkbox — it's part of how the project is structured from the start, through a framework we call the Collective Covenant™. Final terms will be set out in the Mining Convention and definitive project agreements as the concession process advances.
Whether you're a prospective partner, a sovereign counterpart, or simply want to learn more about the project — we'd like to hear from you.