Modern Mining July 2015

COUNTRY FOCUS – BOTSWANA

of 1,69 g/t. The total cash cost was US$960 per ounce (excluding royalties) and net earnings after tax amounted to US$1,87 million. The level of gold production was somewhat lower than anticipated for the year (and roughly 8 000 ounces down on the 2013 figure), mainly as a result of a SAG mill motor failure, now resolved. Originally the mine depended on several pits at the Mupane site itself, 30 km south- east of Francistown, but these have now been largely worked out, leaving the mine reliant on several satellite deposits such as Golden Eagle, 20 km from the Mupane mine site, stockpile material and an underground resource below the Tau pit, Tau being one of the original ore bodies discovered by Byron and his team. Galane is already well advanced with the development of an underground mine at Tau. Explaining the project, Byron says it will exploit a measured and indicated resource of 128 600 ounces of gold. “The plan is to mine this ore – which has a grade of 3 g/t and bet- ter – at a rate of up to 30 000 tonnes/month over the next three-and-a-half years to produce approximately 100 000 ounces of gold. The mining method to be used is long-hole stoping. Access is provided by two portals at different levels off the side of the pit which link in to a zig-zag decline, which is still being devel- oped down to the ore body. We expect to be in a position to start stoping in the third quar- ter of this year, although some ore is already coming through from the development work. We’ve contracted out all the underground min- ing to Minetech, which is a Botswana-based company. Their mining manager is Steve Venn who has a wealth of experience in mining the

Above: The screening plant was commissioned last year to handle stockpiled low grade material amounting to 700 kt at 0,97 g/t. Left: The Tau pit showing the portals – at 880 m and 840 m – to the underground mine.

and well

Byron – whose home is in Francistown – forms part of a ‘hands on’ Mupane management team that includes GM Wayne Hatton-Jones, who has 26 years of experience in Africa, Asia and Europe in gold mining and Processing Manager Geoff McLoughlin, a metallurgist with 29 years of experience in operations and plant design. Galane itself is a TSX-V listed com- pany and is headed by Chairman Ravi Sood, based in Canada, and CEO Nick Brodie, who is UK-based, both with financial backgrounds. Hatton-Jones, apart from managing Mupane, also acts as Galane’s COO. In Galane’s 2014 financial year (to 31 December 2014), Mupane produced just short of 31 000 ounces of gold from total ore milled (including some low-grade stockpile material) of 745 000 tonnes at an average grade

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