Modern Mining September 2018

COUNTRY FOCUS: MOZAMBIQUE

Mozambique emerges as a With one large-scale graphite mine, Balama, already pro- ducing, a smaller mine in operation and at least another three mines on the near horizon, Mozambique – which two years ago did not have a single commercial-scale graphite mine – is well on its way to becoming one of the world’s leading graphite producers, as Modern Mining’s Arthur Tassell reports here. The existing Balama mine and the projects under development are all located in the far north of the country in Cabo Delgado Province, also noted for its vanadium and ruby resources.

D eveloped by ASX-listed Syrah Resources at a cost of US$215 million, Balama is the first ‘greenfield’ graphite project in Mozambique to come into pro- duction. Commissioning activities at Balama began in May 2017 and first production was achieved in November. Syrah transitioned Balama to operations at the start of 2018 and commenced selling natural flake graphite to a global customer base. The official inaugura- tion of the mine took place in April this year, with Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi in attendance. Balama has a nameplate capacity of 350 000 tonnes per annum (t/a) at 95 % fixed carbon, with the reserves being sufficient for over 50 years of operation at full production. The aver- age head grade is expected to be approximately 19 % Total Graphitic Carbon (TGC) during the first 10 years of operations as per the feasibility study. The mining is a standard truck-and- shovel operation while the ore is treated in a 2 Mt/a plant which provides for crushing (by means of a sizer rather than an impact crusher), grinding, flotation, filtration, drying, screen- ing and bagging. The concentrate is exported through the Port of Nacala, which is approxi- mately 500 km from the mine site by road, with the main customers being located in China, Japan, South Korea, Europe and the US in both the industrial and battery sectors. The new mine is still in the ramp-up phase with commercial production expected to be declared in the final quarter of this year. In the first six months of this year, it mined 532 000 tonnes of ore (at greater than 9 % TGC) while mill feed for the period was 444 000 tonnes at a feed grade of 16 % TGC with the recovery

achieved being 42 %. The graphite produced for the first six months of 2018 amounted to 32 400 tonnes, with additional production of 10 000 and 14 000 tonnes in July and August respectively. For the full year (to 31 December 2018), Syrah has revised its production target down- wards to 135 000 to 145 000 tonnes (previously 160 000 tonnes) and predicts that C1 cash operating costs will be in the range of US$430 to US$450 per tonne (as opposed to previous guidance of US$400 per tonne) as a result of the change to the production target. With recoveries being below plan during the first six months of this year, Syrah has recently undertaken an extensive ramp-up review co- ordinated by its new COO, Julio Costa. This has identified key actions required to lift recover- ies through improved flotation process control and increased operating stability. “Enabling activities are underway in all identified areas,” says Syrah. Recoveries achieved in August increased to 57 %, reaching 70 % in the last week of the month. Once it reaches full capacity (and the tim- ing of this will obviously depend on market

26  MODERN MINING  September 2018

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