Modern Mining March 2019

DIAMOND MINING MINING C TRACT

extend its African footprint times, however, the mining division has always traded profitably, proving to be one of the mainstays of the Basil Read Group. There has been speculation that Basil Read Ltd might seek a buyer for BRM but Williams says the business is not up for sale. Currently, BRM’s biggest

contract by volume is at the Skorpion zinc mine of Vedanta Zinc International (VZI) in the far south of Namibia, where the com- pany is moving just over a million bank cubic metres (BCMs) a month working on the final cut of the open-pit

at Jwaneng, in which it was in a joint venture – known as the Majwe Mining JV – with a long- standing Botswanan partner, Bothakga Burrow, and international mining contractor Thiess Mining Services (previously Leighton). BRM has recently exited the JV. “We had a 28 % interest in Majwe, which has now been sold to Thiess Botswana and Bothakga Burrow Botswana in a deal worth BWP85 million,” says Williams. “We remain engaged with Jwaneng, having been awarded a two-year drill- ing contract at the mine recently. We are very committed to Botswana and will be watching developments in the country’s mining industry very carefully, particularly in the developing Kalahari Copperbelt and the coalfields, with a view to securing further contracts.” In South Africa BRM’s only major mining contract is at the Venetia diamond mine of De Beers in Limpopo Province. “We’ve worked at Venetia since 2008, doing the full scope of drill- ing, rehabilitation and, since 2012, loading and hauling as well,” says Williams. “The mine, of course, is going underground so open-pit oper- ations will eventually cease but we would hope to be on site for at least another three years.” Another notable contract for BRM in South Africa, though now finished, was at Assmang’s Beeshoek iron ore and manganese mine in the Northern Cape. The contract started in 2012 and extended over three years. BRM’s fourth big active contract is at the new Liqhobong diamond mine of Firestone Diamonds in the highlands of Lesotho, where it moved on to site early in 2018. “This is a

operation. “We’ve been on site since May 2017 and the contract has generally gone well,” says Williams. “It’s our first contract for Vedanta, which is one of the bigger mining groups operating in Southern Africa, with operations not only in Namibia but also in Zambia and in the Northern Cape at Black Mountain and Gamsberg.” BRM has a second contract in Namibia – this is at the Tschudi open-pit copper mine in the north of the country near Tsumeb. It was appointed by the mine’s owner, Weatherly International, to undertake the open-pit mining in 2014 and has been on site ever since. “This is a somewhat smaller contract than Skorpion, with now only about half the vol- umes, but it has been running for a long time providing us with a steady baseload of work in Namibia,” notes Williams. “It’s also been challenging at times with water inflow into the pit having proved a complication last year. We worked closely with the client to bring the problem under control and the contract is cur- rently going very well.” He adds that BRM and B&E have had a long history in Namibia, hav- ing worked at both the Rössing and Trekkopje uranium mines, starting in 2007. In neighbouring Botswana, BRM has a long track record and over the years it has worked at all of Debswana’s diamond mines (Jwaneng, Orapa, Daamtsha and Letlhakane) and also for the Mupane gold mine, the Tati nickel mine, the Boseto copper mine and the Lerala dia- mond mine. Probably its single biggest contract in the country was the massive Cut 8 project

A drone view of the Skorpion open pit in Namibia. Basil Read Mining has been working on the final cut at the mine since 2017.

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