Modern Mining November 2019

MINING News

Rainbow to move to mechanised operation

resource in early 2020 that will support the targeted production levels. Rainbow’s mining licence has a total of 30 exploration targets, all of which have been shown to have numerous REE occur- rences that contain mineralisation. Of these 30 targets, seven targets were historically mined, a very good indicator of high-grade mineralisation in mining deposits in Africa. Rainbow also advises that it has imple- mented an operational cost reduction programme within the first month of new management changes which has led to a material reduction in operational costs. The management estimates the break- even level of concentrate production for the operation to be stable and support the above outlined strategy has been reduced from around 270 tonnes per month to 110 tonnes per month of concentrate. Commenting on the Gakara operation last month (October) in Rainbow’s audited results for the year ended 30 June 2019, newly appointed Chief Executive George Bennett said that until September 2019 mining focused exclusively on high-grade veins, which were extracted by hand, with all other materials considered waste. “Once we have defined a larger ore- body to JORC standards, we will develop a mine plan that will extract ore in bulk, by mechanical means. This will allow us to extract a far greater quantity of material at a much quicker rate, and will mean a far larger tonnage of ROM material but with a lower overall grade of mineralisation,” he said. Gakara is one of the highest-grade (47‑67 % TREO) rare earths projects globally and the only African producer. Rainbow began production of rare earth concentrates in Q4-2017 and has a ten- year distribution and offtake agreement with multinational thyssenkrupp Materials Trading secured for the sale of at least 5 000 t/a of concentrate produced.  mented: “Luctor has been instrumental in leading the operations’ transition to steady-state operational performance fol- lowing a long period of capital investment across our mines and I would like to thank him for his significant contribution to the company over the last eight years. He leaves Petra at a time when the company is delivering solid and consistent produc- tion results across the operations and I am certain that he will be successful in his future endeavours. We wish him well.” 

In an operational update, London-listed Rainbow Rare Earths, the Rare Earth Element (REE) mining company which owns and operates the Gakara project in Burundi, says it is continuing with concen- trate shipments from its operations with a further 100 tonnes of concentrate grading approximately 56 % Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) having been dispatched. This ship- ment was completed in the first week of October 2019, with additional shipments of concentrate due for processing in the com- ing weeks. Significantly, the shipments of TREO contain very low levels of radioactive material, a common issue in rare earth shipments frommany other operations. The concentrate from Gakara contains very low levels of both uranium and thorium, mean- ing it is readily shippable on the open seas.

Demand for Gakara’s concentrate remains strong as a result of both the quality and limited impurities, says Rainbow. As previously indicated, production lev- els are expected to be reduced whilst the company performs the work necessary to achieve higher production target levels as it moves its focus from high-grade vein min- ing to a more broad, mechanised operation. In order to achieve the transformation to a mechanised operation, the company is undertaking detailed geological work to establish a drill area that will support this strategy. This exploration programme will be supervised by Malcolm Titley, the for- mer head of mining consultant CSA Global (CSA) in the UK, and by CSA Global itself, with the immediate aim of generating a prioritised ranking of exploration targets in order to complete a JORC-compliant

The Gakara rare earths project in Burundi (photo: Rainbow).

Petra Diamonds streamlines its management structure LSE-listed Petra Diamonds has announced that in order to provide effective support to the company’s operations and to facili- tate the rapid execution of the company’s Project 2022 strategy, a number of organ- isational changes have been put into effect. Project 2022 is designed to deliver US$150-200million net free cash flow over the next three years to address net debt. With all operations having transitioned

into steady-state operational performance, Petra has implemented a flatter man- agement structure, with the mines now reporting directly to the Chief Executive. The restructuring has resulted in the removal of the COO role and therefore, through mutual agreement, Luctor Roode is leaving the company to pursue other interests, with immediate effect. Richard Duffy, Chief Executive, com-

10  MODERN MINING  November 2019