Modern Mining August 2019

FLUORSPAR

NOKENG comes on stream South Africa’s newest mine, the Nokeng Fluorspar Mine, was officially opened at the beginning of August, and is now ramping up to its steady-state ore production level of 630 000 tonnes per annum (t/a). Developed by SepFluor Limited at a cost of R1,7 billion, Nokeng will rank as one of only two major fluorspar producers in South Africa (the other being its neighbour Vergenoeg) and is coming on stream at a time when fluorspar prices have increased very significantly compared to those prevailing prior to the start of construction in mid-2017.

Wagner, an electrical engineer, joined SepFluor as CEO in 2015. He previously worked for a number of min- ing companies – notably JCI, AngloGold, UMK, African Nickel and Norilsk – in senior management roles. He took a small media group, includ- ing Modern Mining , on a tour of the mine on the day of the opening. The project comprises three adjacent, high-quality, haematite-fluorspar depos- its – Plattekop, Outwash Fan and Wiltin. The Plattekop and

Outwash Fan deposits contain a SAMREC-compliant, estimated total mineral reserve of just over 12 Mt and are both currently being mined. Outwash Fan is the bigger of the two deposits (9 Mt as opposed to the 3,2 Mt of Plattekop) but lower in grade (22,7 % cal- cium fluoride (CaF 2 ) in situ compared to 38,6 % CaF 2 at Plattekop). Wiltin is only partially explored but very preliminary indications are that it could be an exten- sion of Plattekop with a similar grade. According to Wagner, the mining operation is sim- plicity itself and more akin to quarrying than open-pit mining. “The volumes are not huge and both Outwash Fan and Plattekop are bulk-type deposits which are easily mined,” he says. “Our mining contractor, Andru Mining, only requires a small equipment fleet consist- ing of 30-t capacity articulated haulers and two small excavators. Dust is a problem, though, particularly given the fact that we are bordered by some game farms, and we use emulsion-type dust suppression systems on all our haul roads.” In the mine’s first nine years of operation, both deposits will be exploited with the plant receiv- ing a blended product from both pits. Thereafter, for a period of about seven years, the plant will be fed from a higher-grade shallower portion of the Outwash Fan deposit as Plattekop will have been

L ocated approximately 95 km north-east of Pretoria at Rust de Winter in Gauteng Province, Nokeng is one of only three significant fluor- spar production newcomers to have entered the global market over the past decade. Its concen- trator will produce around 180 000 t/a of acid-grade fluorspar (acidspar) – which is 97 % pure fluorspar – and 30 000 t/a of metallurgical grade fluorspar (metspar) when at steady-state, with most of the product going to international markets, in particular customers in the US and Europe. Getting the mine into production has been a long exercise for SepFluor, which owns 100 % of Nokeng Fluorspar Mine (RF) (Pty) Limited, the company which holds the mining right. Says SepFluor CEO Rob Wagner: “The project was acquired well over a decade ago and the long timeline to production has primarily been due to the difficulties of raising the requisite financing in a market which has not been at all favourable to new mine development, particu- larly for an ‘unglamorous’ industrial mineral such as fluorspar. But finally we’re there and our new mine is a modern, efficient operation which we expect will be one of the lowest cost producers internationally.”

SepFluor CEO Rob Wagner (left) with SepFluor Project Executive Johan Brits pictured at the Plattekop deposit.

20  MODERN MINING  August 2019