Modern Mining February 2018

FLUORSPAR

of ore will be maintained after the crushing and screening phases. Processing will comprise a fairly standard crush-mill-float method similar to that adopted by most platinum operations, says Wagner. “An innovation at Nokeng is the use of high pressure grinding roll (HPGR) technology in our crushing circuit, which will give us an added competitive advantage,” he says. “This will help keep the iron content in the con- centrate as low as possible, as this element is liberated more effectively when the ore is bro- ken along fracture lines, which HPGR will do more effectively.” Cold commissioning of the concentra- tor plant is scheduled to start in August this year, with plant construction to be complete by October when hot commissioning and pro- duction ramp up will begin; product will be transported by road to Durban for shipping. “The first 7 000 tonnes of concentrate will be shipped to a US-based customer in January 2019,” says Wagner. Among the first buildings to be completed will be the mine’s R24-million training cen- tre – a spacious facility adjacent to the mine property which will train a steady flow of com- munity members in technical skills such as building, mechanical and electrical trades up to NQF 2 level. “It is important that the mine contributes as early as possible to skills upliftment in the area

– especially as the nearby communities are gen- erally poor and under-skilled,” he says. Training company PMI has been contracted to train 60 local residents in three-month cycles, a model that worked well for Wagner during his tenure at a remote manganese mine in the Northern Cape. As far as possible, local contractors are to be involved in the construction and operational phases of the mine, says Wagner, which will create over 300 fixed-term jobs during con- struction and about 200 permanent jobs during operation. Nokeng will have a mine life of 19 years and the average run-of-mine feed rate will be 630 000 tonnes a year. It is anticipated that the mine will be in the lower 25th percentile on the global cost curve of fluorspar miners. Report by Paul Crankshaw

This exploration gulley into Nokeng’s Plattekop deposit dates back decades.

The beauty of beneficiation Products of fluorspar rise sharply in value as they progress through the mul- tiple levels of downstream beneficiation.  As a raw material, fluorspar sells for about 45 US cents per kilogram;  Hydrogen fluoride is worth around US$2 per kilogram, with anhydrous hydrogen fluoride closer to US$3 per kilogram;  Fluorine is valued at about US$15 per kilogram; and  Fluorochemical products have values upwards of US$30 per kilogram. This creates exciting prospects for South Africa, which is home to 17 % of the world’s fluorspar reserves – more even than China’s 10 %. 

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