Modern Mining January 2015

SOUTHERN AFRICA’S TOP MINING PROJECTS

The Karowe diamond mine of Lucara – one of our Top Projects (photo: Arthur Tassell).

In our regular Top Mining Projects feature we look at projects distinguished by their size, innovation or pioneering spirit. With mining in Southern Africa generally in a depressed state, finding projects meeting these criteria is not easy but we have identified three that fit the bill. Two are diamond mining developments, one in Botswana and one in Lesotho, while the third is a bold copper mining initiative in Botswana. It says something about the parlous state of South African mining that all our projects are located in neighbouring states.

T he first of our Botswanan projects is the Karowe diamond mine of Can- ada’s Lucara Diamond Corp. Locat- ed in the Orapa Kimberlite Field (OKF) and only commissioned in 2012, it has proven to be a spectacular success – with the big surprise being the unusually high number of large stones it has produced, several of them exceeding 200 carats. To cater for this large-diamond population and also to handle the harder unweathered ore being encountered as mining moves into deeper parts of the ore- body, a substantial US$55 million upgrade of the plant is currently underway. Interestingly, the upgrade incorporates new technology that Lucara believes represents a ‘first’ – not only in Botswana but worldwide. This is the use of X-ray Transmission (XRT) machines in a primary diamond recovery role. The irony of Karowe is that the kimberlite it exploits – AK6 – was discovered by De Beers around 45 years ago. Due to limitations in the exploration technology and methods then being used, both its size and grade were under-esti- mated and the true potential of the orebody was only realised more than 30 years later when the kimberlite was subjected to re-evaluation. Moving to Lesotho, Firestone Diamonds, now headed by Stuart Brown, who spent 20 years with De Beers, is well into the construc- tion phase of its Liqhobong mine. Although Liqhobong has been mined in the past (a pilot processing plant was erected on site 10 years ago to treat ore from the small satellite pipe), the new project is focusing on the main pipe and is designed to produce over a million carats

a year. This is an exceptional figure for Lesotho, although the diamonds produced will gener- ally be of much lower value than those from the nearby Letšeng mine, currently the flagship of diamond mining in Lesotho. Liqhobong will not be an innovative mine in the sense of pioneering new technology but what makes it exceptional is the fact that Brown and his team have been able to secure the fund- ing required for its development in a market which is resistant to new mining projects – par- ticularly those being undertaken by juniors. Moving back to Botswana, the third of our Top Projects is the Khoemacau copper mine of Cupric Canyon Capital, which is on the brink of construction. Located in the new copper mining district between Maun and Ghanzi in north- west Botswana, Khoemacau is a bold venture given current conditions in the commodities market – and also the fact that the only other copper mine in this area has under-performed since being opened in 2012. Cupric is confi- dent, however, that the Khoemacau orebody can be mined effectively using underground methods (as opposed to the open-pit methods used by the neighbouring operation) and that it has a highly viable project on its hands. Khoemacau will have an ore treatment capacity of 3,6 Mt/a and is designed to produce up to 50 000 t/a of copper in concentrate. This is not a big figure by world standards but excep- tional for Botswana, which is not noted as a copper producer. The new mine, which should enter production in 2018, will also produce silver as a by-product although this will only account for about 10 % of the revenue stream. 

Top projects

January 2015  MODERN MINING  47