Modern Mining October 2019

rate of 16 000 tonnes per day (t/d) for a total of 14,7 Mt of material, including 616 000 tonnes of mineralised material at an aver- age grade of 6,45 g/t Au. Drill and blast will be required almost at the beginning of the excavation work because there is almost no overburden. The open-pit operation is planned over a period of 2,5 years, includ- ing the pre-production period. Below the open pit, recovery of the mineralised zone is foreseen using an underground mining method (sublevel long hole stoping) with the use of cemented rock fill. In the scenario presented in the PEA, development of the underground mine would commence in the second year of operations, starting from one of the small satellite pits located towards the central portion of the Nabanga deposit. More than 9 600 m of underground development are planned over the project LoM to unlock the different mineralised zones. Approximately 2,36 million tonnes of material with an average head-grade of 6,48 g/t Au are projected to be mined from underground operations at an average of 1 000 t/d dur-

ing the seven-year projected LoM. The Nabanga process plant will be based on a conventional crushing and grinding circuit, with the crushing circuit composed of a single-stage jaw crusher. Crushed ore will then be conveyed to the grinding circuit consisting of a SAG mill and ball mill. Following that, a flotation circuit is expected to recover some 80 % of the gold-bearing minerals, with the remaining 20 % treated in CIL leach tanks. The flo-

and low in silica and alumina. The short drilling campaign comprised 23 holes for 1 154 m and focused on the near- surface mineralisation within the conceptual pit shell used as the basis of the company’s recent Scoping Study; 53,4 Mt of mineralisa- tion is contained within this pit shell. The current mineral resource stands at 612 Mt at an in-situ grade of 0,78 % V 2 O 5 in the indicated and inferred categories. The resource includes a high grade, near surface component of 169 Mt at an in-situ grade of 1,07 % V 2 O 5 .  tation concentrate will pass to the regrind mill to reduce the particle size, before being sent to an intensive leach reactor. The CIL stream will undergo pressure elu- tion, after which both pregnant solutions will be sent to electrowinning cells for gold recovery. A gold recovery of approximately 92 % is expected in fresh ore and 90 % in oxide ore based on metallurgical test results obtained by Orbis Gold in 2013 and 2014. 

Drilling confirms quality of SPD mineralisation ASX-listed Vanadium Resources has announced first drilling results from the reserve drilling programme at the Steelpoortdrift (SPD) vanadium project in South Africa.

According to the company, the results continue to show the high grade, high quality nature of the vanadiferous titano- magnetite present at Steelpoortdrift, which is potentially a saleable product and also provides an advantage in downstream processing due to being high in vanadium (~2,2 %), iron (> 55 %) and titanium (~12 %)

October 2019  MODERN MINING  13