Modern Mining November 2015

MINING News

Weatherly to investigate increasing Tschudi’s capacity

Weatherly International, which owns copper mines in Namibia and is listed on London’s AIM, increased its production for the quarter ending 30 September 2015, being the first quarter of the finan­ cial year ending 30 June 2016. It also reports it is considering increasing the capacity of its new Tschudi project in northern Namibia. In September, the company, which – apart from Tschudi – owns the Otjihase and Matchless mines in the Windhoek area, increased its quarterly production guidance by 15 % from an average of 1 000 tonnes per month to an average of 1 150 tonnes per month of copper cathode. This revised guidance level was exceeded by a further 3 %, with produc­ tion averaging 1 185 tonnes per month. Production for CY2015 is now expected to reach approximately 10 400 tonnes of copper cathode, a 4 % increase above the previously advised level of 10 000 tonnes. Having operated at in excess of 80 % of design capacity for a full quarter, Weatherly has now confirmed that Commercial Production status has been achieved at Tschudi and says that from 1 October onwards revenue and operating costs at Tschudi will no longer be capitalised. Weatherly is currently updating resource and reserve estimations for Tschudi as of 30 June 2015. These esti­ mates, it says, will be combined with all mining and processing experience gained to date in order to produce updated min­ ing and processing schedules.

The Tschudi heap leach, SX/EW copper project in northern Namibia.

As announced in May, recruitment efforts have been ongoing for a General Manager for Tschudi, and Weatherly reports it has now appointed Peter Christians to the position, commencing work in December. Christians is a Namibian mining engi­ neer with over 30 years of international mining experience. His most recent role was Country Manager and MD for Reptile Uranium Namibia, a subsidiary of ASX- listed Deep Yellow Limited. He has held senior management positions across the globe in Namibia, Tanzania, Russia, Mali, Ghana, Australia and the USA with com­ panies including Rio Tinto, AngloGold Ashanti, Bannerman Resources, Uranium One, ARMZ and Gold Fields. On the subject of Tschudi, Weatherly channels that are characteristic of chemi­ cal weathering. Three of the pyrope have weathering textures that overprint primary surfaces formed in the kimberlite magma, suggesting little to no transport. Four pyrope in sample MTI83 have primary surfaces that are overprinted by weathering textures, including fragile features that would not survive during transport. Secondary material on the MTI83 pyrope includes Mg-bearing clays that may derive from altered kimberlite. Many of the features are identical to features on pyrope from weathering profiles over kimberlites elsewhere in Botswana. Pangolin’s President and CEO, Dr Leon

says that during the operational ramp-up, it has had the opportunity to stress test various parts of the heap leach, SX-EW plant and to gather large quantities of per­ formance data on the heap leach and plant performance. Based on this data, it has determined that the infrastructure could be upgraded from a capacity of 17 000 tonnes to 20 000 tonnes of copper cath­ ode per annum (an approximately 18 % increase in production rates) via a capital expenditure of US$1,2 million. The company says that once it has completed the reserve update exercise mentioned above, mining and process­ ing schedule options will be evaluated to quantify the potential incremental finan­ cial benefits of a production expansion to 20 000 tonnes per annum.  Daniels, comments, “We are excited to receive these important results for the Malatswae project. Previous sampling on the project has produced many indicators with proximal to source features including diamond. These new results are excep­ tional in having features that are identical to pyrope garnets directly from weathered kimberlite, with no evidence of transport. Some of the fragile textures are directly related to interaction between the kimber­ lite magma and the garnets. The samples were collected directly over a geophysical aeromagnetic anomaly which is a signifi­ cant association. Additional surveys are underway to define the best areas for drill­ ing, which is scheduled to occur during the current Q4.” 

Pangolin recovers pyrope garnets at Malatswae Pangolin Diamonds Corp, listed on the TSX-V, has recovered pyrope garnets with near-source surface features from its wholly-owned Malatswae diamond proj­ ect, located 90 km south-east of the Orapa kimberlite field in Botswana. Four samples produced over 14 pyrope garnets, with five grains in two samples. The samples are spaced from 200-400 m apart and posi­ tioned directly over a magnetic anomaly of similar dimensions.

Samples MTI64 and MTI83 each pro­ duced five pyrope garnets ranging from 0,4-0,8 mm inmaximumdimension. In sam­ ple MTI64, all of the grains exhibit irregular to well-formed trichitic pits and sinuous

November 2015  MODERN MINING  5