Modern Mining January 2017

TIN

The grade we were expecting was around 2,5 % but we’ve got well over 4 %. At present met- als prices, this makes Mpama North roughly equivalent to a 16,4 % copper deposit or a gold deposit of 18,5 g/t Au. “On a world scale, Mpama North is extremely impressive,” he continues. “The only orebody bigger is Syrymbet in northern Kazakhstan which has a much lower grade. It also has a difficult metallurgy whereas ours is excellent. As Anton Esterhuizen has said, Bisie is part of an emerging tin province that is one of the most significant globally.” A key milestone for Bisie was the pub- lication of a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) in February 2016. It was compiled by MDM Engineering in collaboration with Bara Consulting, who provided the mineral reserves estimate. Other consultants involved with the DFS were Epoch and The MSA Group. Logistics and infrastructural studies to sup- port the DFS were performed by Paradigm Project Management while the metallurgical testwork was carried out by Maelgwyn Mineral Services. The DFS has since (in June 2016) been updated, mainly to reflect the increase in Bisie’s resources since completion of the DFS. The Updated Feasibility Study (UFS) envis- ages an estimated initial capital expenditure of US$124,4 million to support the construction of an access road, an underground mine, a process

Still and Anton Esterhuizen) and is backed by Denham Capital which – through its subsidiary Tremont Master Holdings – has a 44 % stake. Alphamin completed its acquisition of the Bisie property in 2013 and has since under- taken an enormous volume of work. Drilling alone – mainly at the Mpama North site – totals nearly 40 km and has enabled Alphamin to publish some truly impressive resource figures. The latest resource update for Mpama North, filed in June 2016, includes a measured min- eral resource of 0,46 Mt at 4,31 % tin for 19 600 tonnes of contained tin, an indicated mineral resource of 4,14 Mt at 4,55 % tin for 188 400 tonnes of contained tin and an inferred min- eral resource of 0,54 Mt at 4,25 % tin for 22 800 tonnes of contained tin; all using a cut-off of 0,5 % tin. This represents a 34 % increase in the measured and indicated category tin resources announced in October 2015. “Our original target was to get 100 000 tonnes of tin and we have now more than dou- bled this, based purely on Mpama North,” says Kamstra. “The Mpama South orebody further down the ridge at Bisie could well host similar resources but frankly we have no need to do more drilling at the moment, as Mpama North will support many years of mining. The figures for Mpama North are so good that sometimes when you look at them you wonder whether a decimal point has been put in the wrong place.

Alphamin teammembers at the Logu Bridge.

“Our original target was to get 100 000 tonnes of tin and we have nowmore than doubled this, based purely on Mpama North.”

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