Modern Mining December 2018

COMMENT

Impressive Gamsberg on show

Y ou have to hand it to Vedanta Zinc International (VZI). The com- pany, part of the Vedanta Group, is working wonders down at Aggeneys in the Northern Cape. Not only does it have plans to put renewed life into the Black Mountain underground zinc mine but it has also brought on stream the Gamsberg zinc project, after it languished for years on the ‘back burner’ when it was owned by previous operators. I was fortunate in early December to finally see the project for myself, travelling down to the site for a media visit, which included a tour of the huge mining operation on top of Gamsberg mountain and of the high-tech processing plant which has been built on the plain below. On hand to brief the journalists during the tour were senior executives of VZI, including its dynamic CEO, Deshnee Naidoo (who now also heads all Vedanta’s base metals operations in Africa), and its VP: Projects, Satish Kumar. Built at a cost of US$400 million, Gamsberg is now starting its ramp-up to full production, which should be achieved within the next six to nine months. The projected steady-state output is 250 000 tonnes per annum of zinc in concen- trate (derived from around 4,0 Mt/a ROM). The project is impressive, with the process- ing facility being a real revelation, occupying – as it does – a remarkably small footprint and being equipped with a control room that provides a panoramic view of the plant’s ‘hard- ware’. It ranks as a world first inasmuch as it is the first zinc concentrator globally to use the cutting-edge Staged Flotation Reactor (SFR)

2015. In reality, most of the development has been compressed into a much shorter time- frame, with the bulk of the work having been completed in 2017 and the first half of 2018. Many South African companies have contrib- uted to the success of the project, the prime ones being ELB Engineering Services, the EPC contractor, and Aveng Moolmans, responsible for the mining operation. The completion of Gamsberg, of course, means that there is one less on-going project to sustain the many companies in South Africa’s mining industry who derive a major part of their income from developing and equipping new mines. The good news is that Vedanta has big plans for the Aggeneys area. It has already completed a feasibility study on Phase II of Gamsberg – essentially a doubling up which would see a second 4 Mt/a concentrator being added – and is also looking at the viability of ultimately building a smelter/refinery to pro- cess Gamsberg concentrate. These projects would involve considerable capex, with the price tag for Gamsberg Phase II being estimated at between US$350 million and US$400 million and for the smelter/refinery at US$700 million to US$800 million. In addi- tion, Vedanta is looking at extending the life of the Black Mountain mine via the Swartberg Phase II project which would enable maximum extraction of the current Deeps resource. Modern Mining will be reporting in much more detail on Gamsberg in its January issue where it will feature in our annual round-up of Africa’s Top Mining Projects. Arthur Tassell

The Gamsberg concentrator plant (photo: Arthur Tassell).

technology of Canada’s Woodgrove Technologies. Gamsberg also has the most advanced assay laboratory I’ve ever seen. Highly automated and equipped with robotic arms, it has more the fla- vour of Silicon Valley than the Northern Cape and is in keeping with Vedanta’s vision of mak- ing Gamsberg one of the most digitally-enabled mines in Africa. In theory Gamsberg has been a three-year project, with the first blast on site having taken place in July

December 2018  MODERN MINING  3