Modern Mining June 2017

MINING News

Mining starts at Gakara’s first production site

already been made, with the purpose of delineating further tonnage for future mining. Tasks to be undertaken include trenching, mapping, gravity surveying, and a trenching/terracing prospecting programme with a view to uncovering, accurately mapping, and sampling the in-situ sources of large bastnaesite blocks previously discovered on the surface in the Kiyenzi area. Rainbow’s ROMore processing plant will be situated at Kabezi, 10 km due south of Bujumbura and approximately 20  km from the company’s mining areas. The site com- prises relatively flat ground, close to the shore of Lake Tanganyika, and is located on a main asphalt road. This will provide ease of access for the container trucks collecting rare earth concentrate for export. Rainbow’s selected EPCM contrac- tor, Obsideo Consulting of South Africa, continues to make good progress with equipment procurement and expects the first shipment of containers to leave South Africa during June. 

AIM-listed Rainbow has provided a further update on its Gakara rare earth project in Burundi. Gakara is one of the highest grade rare earth element mining projects globally with an estimated in-situ grade of 47-67 % Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO). Mining work at Gakara commenced in April 2017, focusing on the initial mining site at Gasagwe. This will be Rainbow’s pri- mary source of ROM ore during 2017/18. The labour force has concentrated on stripping overburden at the surface of Gasagwe, thereby exposing the targeted ‘main vein’ to a height of at least 1 m along its current exposed strike length. The uncovered vein will be relatively simple to extract and stockpile as required. There have also been discoveries of sev- eral previously unrecorded veins which will also be extracted and added to the ROM stockpile prior to the commissioning of the processing plant at Kabezi. Rainbow reports that work continues on the improvements to the approximately 2,3 km long Gasagwe access road from the

nearest town of Mutambu using local con- tractors. The road upgrade is required for the haul trucks to transport ROM ore to the processing plant, hence there is no impact on current mining operations during its construction. By the end of May 2017, the number of local workers trained and inducted by Rainbow’s team had doubled to 80 from the initial 40. As well as being trained to assist with mining activities, the newwork- ers will also be assigned to exploration and road maintenance roles. Rainbow’s planned exploration activities over the coming months will incorporate both greenfield and brownfield areas. The focus of the greenfield work will be on areas within the company’s existing explo- ration licence, which have previously not been explored. The company will use tech- niques that have proved successful during previous work in other areas. Brownfield work will focus on areas within Rainbow’s mining licence where significant rare earth discoveries have

Mining work at Gakara began in April 2017, focusing on the initial mining site at Gasagwe (photo: Rainbow Rare Earths).

Big increase in output at Frontier operation Frontier mine, owned by Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), delivered more than 107 kt of contained copper in concentrate in 2016, an increase of 35 % on 2015 output.

very encouraging and I am proud of what the team has achieved. This is a major step forward for the Group and supports ERG Africa’s strategy to become a regional cop- per and cobalt champion. Our people are ERG’s greatest asset and their ability to plan, embrace change and deliver solid results is commendable. “The achievements at Frontier mine play a key part in forming a balanced produc- tion system alongside ERG’s copper and cobalt asset portfolio in Africa, which also includes Boss Mining, Comide, Chambishi Metals, and the Metalkol Roan Tailings Reclamation project.” 

the efficiency and effectiveness of its oper- ating model. The growth was the outcome of con- siderable operational improvements and investment while the mine also changed the way it deployed contractors. Major ben- efits were realised from Q2 2016 onwards, resulting in a steady supply of copper ore, improved plant feed grades and plant throughput tonnages. John Robertson, Frontier Mine President – General Manager, said: “The production figures at our flagship Frontier mine are

Frontier – originally built by First Quantum – is ERG’s flagship mine in the DRC and is the cornerstone of the Group’s copper business in Africa. In 2016 the plant improved its performance across many key indicators. A revised production plan was launched by ERG in late 2015 to increase long-term copper production at Frontier by improving

14  MODERN MINING  June 2017