Modern Mining May 2018

MINING News

Syama Underground on course for late-2018 start-up

tion continued from the first and second production levels (the 1130 and 1105 lev- els). In all, 64 448 tonnes of underground development ore at a grade of 3,0 g/t was delivered to the processing plant during the reporting period. The second primary ventilation raise bore from the 1290 to the 1140 level was completed during the quarter. The Autonomous Decline has reached the 1035 level and the Main Decline has reached the 1055 level. Both fan chambers are being prepared for construction of the primary fans and development of the 1240 and 1105 main pump chambers has been completed in preparation for pump station construction. Development rates continue to main- tain progress in line with expectations. Advance slowed in the March 2018 quarter as work focused on establishing a number of items of key underground infrastructure. The incline is due to break through into the boxcut in the September 2018 quarter. Development ore will continue to aug- ment the stockpiled sulphide material and satellite open-pit sulphide sources. “The Syama Underground mine is making steady progress towards the final goal of a world class sublevel cave opera- tion,” comments John Welborn, Resolute’s MD and CEO. “Completion of the Syama Underground mine will take total site production from Syama to levels above 250 000 ounces of gold annually.”  south and to the east is currently being implemented. In addition, high density soil sampling is being undertaken over the identified ground magnetic anomaly. Other news from Pangolin is that it has signed an option agreement withMakanwu Civil Blasting (MCB), a private company incorporated under the laws of Botswana. Under the agreement, MCB has granted Pangolin the sole and exclusive option to earn up to a 75 % interest in respect of MCB’s AK10 diamond project located in the Central District of Botswana. The AK10 kimberlite is only 4 km NNE from the Karowe mine of Lucara. It was originally discovered in 1968 from airborne magnetics by De Beers who established that it was diamondiferous. It has been modelled to be 6 ha in size and is close to surface with only 9 m of cover. 

Underground development at Syama (photo: Resolute).

Reporting on the three-month period to 31 March 2018, ASX-listed Resolute Mining says that the Syama Underground mine development remains on schedule for first sublevel cave ore production to com- mence in December 2018. The Syama mine is located in the south of Mali, approximately 30 km from the Côte d’Ivoire border and 300 km south-east of the capital Bamako. It is a large-scale operation which comprises two separate processing plants: a sulphide processing circuit and an oxide processing circuit. Mining at the main Syama open pit

was completed in May 2015. Ore for the sulphide circuit is currently being sourced from stockpiled material, sulphide ore from the northern satellite orebodies, remnant ore from the Syama main pit, and underground development ore. Ore for the oxide circuit is provided by open-pit min- ing of a series of satellite orebodies. The new underground operation will extend the mine life at Syama beyond 2028. During the quarter, underground development commenced on the fourth production level (the 1055 level) and underground development ore produc- a chrome spinel inclusion on the broken surface of the diamond is interpreted by Pangolin to be an indication that the dia- mond is close to source and transport distance is minimal. In addition to the dia- mond, ilmenites with surfaces showing little or no wear through transport have also been recovered from soil samples from the same area during three phases of soil sampling. A detailed ground magnetic survey has been completed over an area of 144 ha and a magnetic anomaly has been identi- fied in the south of the area. The diamond is located adjacent to the ground magnetic anomaly. An additional ground magnetic survey extending the existing survey area to the

Pangolin recovers diamond at Jwaneng South Pangolin Diamonds Corp, listed on the TSX‑V, has announced it has recovered a white diamond from its wholly-owned Jwaneng South kimberlite project in an area 100 km south of the Jwaneng dia- mond mine in the Southern District of Botswana.

The diamond was recovered from an unscreened 60-litre sample collected within a 10 m 2 area of a GPS-controlled sample site. This material was dry screened in the field to recover the +0,425 – 4,0 mm size fraction. The sample was then transported to Francistown, Botswana and processed through Pangolin’s 1 t/h DMS plant. The white diamond measuring approxi- mately 1 mm in its long axis is a fragment of the original diamond. The presence of

10  MODERN MINING  May 2018