Modern Mining July 2015

feature COUNTRY FOCUS – BOTSWANA Recent enhancements to the Mupane plant include this liquid cyanide facility, expected to lead to a 1 % increase in recovery. The Mupane processing plant, commissioned in

24 000 ounces and we will be putting in a new gravity circuit at the Mupane plant site to han- dle the processing. “Looking further out, we are going to mine at Jim’s Luck, around 20 km north-east of the plant on the border with Zimbabwe, with pro- duction probably starting in 2017. We’ve drawn up a mine plan based on a US$1 400 gold price, which envisages the mining of 680 000 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 2,16 g/t at a strip ratio of 5,5.” Byron adds that the stockpiles located at the ROM pad at the Mupane plant are consider- able, amounting to just over 700 000 tonnes at 0,97 g/t. “As you probably know, we commis- sioned a screening plant at the mine last year to handle this material. By using a 40 mm screen, we can upgrade a large part of this resource by a significant margin and we’re expecting the process – which is already underway – to pro- duce an additional 266 000 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 1,60 g/t. The material is easily milled with the recovery anticipated to be above 80 %. The direct operating cost will be between US$600 and US$700 per ounce.” Galane has another 1,4 Mt of low grade stockpiles scattered around its tenements and is currently reviewing whether these can also be treated through the screening plant. Byron acknowledges that cash restraints

greenstone deposits in the Barberton area and in Zimbabwe. “Once Tau Underground – as we call it – is in full production, it will provide nearly a third of the plant throughput. The plant, which is a modern CIL facility, can handle 100 000 tonnes a month, so the Tau ore will be sup- plemented by ore from Golden Eagle, where we’ve recently restarted mining, and soon from Tekwane, where the gold mineralisation occurs in a quartz rubble bed close to surface – which means very low mining costs. Tekwane has an indicated and inferred resource of around

2004 and still going strong. It can process up to 1,2 Mt/a.

26  MODERN MINING  July 2015