Modern Mining January 2018

TIN

geologist and ‘mine finder’, can claim to have been among the first to have identified Bisie’s incredible potential and to have set in motion the chain of events that has resulted in Bisie being under development today. Turning to the technical aspects of the project (and as Modern Mining reported in an article that appeared in its September 2017 issue), Bisie will be a straightforward operation using mining and processing methods which are widely used and well proven. As mentioned, the proposed mining method is Sub-Level Caving (SLC) to remove the ore- body in retreat fashion from the southern and northern limits of mineralisation back towards the centralised trucking ramp. The equipment used to mine the orebody is being sourced from Atlas Copco and delivery of the first units to site is imminent. The machines will include a 10-tonne LHD, two long-hole rigs and a roof bolter. Interestingly, the LHD will not load into purpose-designed mining trucks. As Faber told Modern Mining recently on site, Alphamin – following the example of tin mines in China and Bolivia – has decided to go for conven- tional rigid tipper trucks and is currently

subsidiary, Alphamin Bisie Mining SA (ABM), who is based in Goma. Faber – who Kamstra describes as “without peer as a mine builder in remote environ- ments” – has plenty of DRC experience, having been involved in projects such as Ruashi and Kinsenda in the south of the country in the Central African Copperbelt region, while Robinson is an expert in managing the politi- cal and social aspects of mining projects. He has worked in the past with USAID and cop- per miner Freeport McMoRan, which until recently operated the Tenke Fungurume mine in Lualaba (previously Katanga) Province. The son of American missionaries, he was brought up in the Congo, speaks fluent French and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the country. An achievement for which Robinson can take much of the credit is the creation of the Lowa Alliance, a not-for-profit foundation established in 2016 by Alphamin in conjunction with local communities, which will implement a range of community projects identified for development over a five-year period. Alphamin is dedicating 4 % of its in-country spend to the Alliance. Alphamin also has a strong board brim- ming over with the type of experience which the company needs. It includes well-known mining personalities such as Charles Needham (who is Alphamin’s Chairman) and Bernard Swanepoel, as well as finance sector veteran Paul Baloyi, ex-CEO of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and of Nedbank Africa. The company is also advised by a ‘Panel of Experts’ it has established. Among them are Tony Cox, who is an expert on underground mining methods, particularly the Sub-Level Caving method to be used at Bisie, and Ian Dun, who is a tin metallurgist with a world reputa- tion. Also on the panel is mining entrepreneur Rob Still of Pangea Exploration. Still and his long-time colleague Anton Esterhuizen, a noted

Above: The hilltop camp – almost entirely constructed from locally available materials – at the Bisie mine (photo: Alphamin).

View inside the ventilation adit. It was excavated using manual mining methods.

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January 2018  MODERN MINING  45