Modern Mining July 2018

MINING News

Goldstone sinks shaft to access historic mine

may allow the safe access to the old mine workings. The Norton Shaft is being sunk approxi- mately 40 m to the east of the existing North Shaft that is now derelict. Work at the old North Shaft is currently underway to ascertain if this shaft can be re-opened for use by Goldstone. Depending on the state of the shaft, it may be utilised as a second point of egress, for ventilation pur- poses and also to gain access to the old underground mine workings. As at 6 July 2018, the Norton Shaft had been sunk to 20 m depth below surface with 19 m fully timbered and partitioned. In another development at AKHM, GoldStone has initiated a scoping study to strategically locate material to produce a sample for a bulk test-work programme. This follows the confirmation of the plus 8 km Homase Trend (which Goldstone announced in June this year) which runs from the Akrokeri mine to north of the old Homase pit and includes the current mineral resource of 602 000 ounces (JORC classification). Goldstone says this is an important step in its aim of achieving production within two years as it will assist with determining the optimum recovery process for AKHM, combining both gold recovery and cost effectiveness. Goldstone says it is its intention, once the Akrokeri mine has been accessed, to also accumulate a bulk sample from the underground deposit for the test-work programme. G o l d S t o n e h a s a l s o r e c e n t l y announced that it has appointed SEMS Exploration Services Limited of Accra, Ghana as geological manager of AKHM. SEMS has contributed to the develop- ment of the project for many years, with the founder and owner of SEMS, Simon Meadows Smith, having originally dis- covered the Homase deposit in 1998 with Dominion Mining. SEMS Exploration is a leading inde- pendent, full-service mineral exploration and mining consultancy company in West Africa. It has managed several gold dis- covery and mineral resource definition projects in West Africa over the last 18 years including the management of the Nzema gold mine discovery in Ghana and the Banfora gold project in Burkina Faso. 

As can be seen here, the Norton Shaft is being partitioned to create three compartments (photo: Goldstone Resources).

the old mine workings, which were fully operational until an ingress of water in 1909. In addition, it will provide geologi- cal information and allow the extraction of samples for test work. Timber sets are being installed in the side walls of the 3 x 3 m shaft as the sinking progresses and the shaft is being parti- tioned to create three compartments, the manway compartment, the services com- partment and the hoisting compartment.   Once the Norton Shaft, is it is known, is at its target depth of 30 m depth below surface, a cross-cut will be developed to gain access to the historic mineralised area whilst, at the same time, Goldstone will probe for any old workings/voids that ing mining and processing equipment on site to increase production capacity, spe- cifically focused on Tailings. Tango has a contract mining and diamond recovery agreement with Bluedust 7. The Oena project consists of one new order mining lease located on the Lower Orange River in Northern Cape Province. Oena is 8 800 hectares in size and covers a 4,8 km wide strip along a 15 km length of the Orange River. 

AIM-listed GoldStone Resources reports it is sinking a new shaft to access the historic high-grade Akrokeri underground gold mine, one of two previously producing operations at its Akrokeri-Homase Gold Project (AKHM) in the Ashanti Region of Ghana to enable it to complete a geologi- cal assessment of the mine. The Akrokeri mine is located approxi- mately 6 km along strike from one of the world’s major gold mines, AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi mine. The shaft is intended to provide access to the mineralised zone at the mine, which produced 75 000 ounces of gold in the early 1900s at a recovered average grade of 24 g/t Au. It will also allow access to

Tango Mining mobilises two pans to Oena Tango Mining has acquired and mobilised a processing plant consisting of two 16-ft pans with a combined capacity of 120 tons per hour to the Oena diamond mine. The plant, including a newly purchased 260 kVA diesel generator, will be used to process pan tailings and bantam material (Tailings) left on site from previous mining operations.

The plant will be used in conjunction with Bluedust 7 Proprietary Limited’s exist-

16  MODERN MINING  July 2018