Modern Mining September 2017

MINING News

Syrah Resources reports that its wholly owned subsidiary, Twigg Exploration and Mining, Limitada (Twigg), holder of the Balama graphite project, has finalised the negotiation of a Mining Agreement Mining agreement for Balama project finalised with the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy of Mozambique. The Mining Agreement was approved at the Council of Ministers weekly ordinary session meeting held on 29 August 2017.

The Mining Agreement consolidates all prior project documents and approvals. It also provides the company with clarity around the governing laws and contrac- tualises the mining rights and other obligations for the project. Balama, located in Cabo Delgado Pro­ vince in the north of Mozambique, will be a simple, low strip ratio, open-pit opera- tion. Processing will utilise conventional processes including crushing, grinding, flotation, filtration, drying, screening and bagging. The processing rate is 2 Mt/a with the nameplate capacity being 380 000 tonnes of graphite concentrate per annum. The project, which is on the verge of production, is expected to produce between 140 kt and 160 kt in the first year of production. During the first 12 months, it is expected to achieve a C1 production cash cost of less than US$400 per tonne with this ultimately expected to reduce to less than US$300 per tonne. According to Syrah, Balama will rank as the world’s largest, low cost, high quality producer of natural graphite. 

The Balama plant site photographed in July this year (photo: Syrah Resources).

Pre-production mining starts at Yanfolila AIM-quoted Hummingbird Resources reported in late August that pre-productionmining had commenced on schedule at its Yanfolila gold project in Mali. Comments Dan Betts, CEO of Hummingbird: “Commencement of mining activities at Yanfolila is a significant milestone for Hummingbird as we continue to bring the project closer to pro- duction by the end of this year. Our contract mining partners, AMS, have mobilised a significant fleet to site and this commitment emphasises the momentum the project has gained throughout the year.” Pre-production mining will ramp up over the next three months as Hummingbird approaches full scale operations. By the end of

November, it is anticipated that over 3 Mt of material will have been moved. The mining fleet currently on site includes one Liebherr 9150 excavator, one Liebherr 9250 excavator, six Cat 777 rigid trucks, five Cat D9 dozers, a Cat 336 excavator and two Cat 980 loaders. During the first phase of mining there will be areas of free-dig material as well as material that will require light blasting. Blasting will be conducted using non-electric down hole delay detonators with ammoniumnitrate, fuel oil (ANFO) for dry holes and emulsion explosives for wet holes. AEL Mining Services will provide an explosive storage and supply service to the mining contractor. Advanced grade control drilling to better delineate the orebody and improve planning and ore scheduling to the mill is ongoing together with state-of-the art Trimble differential GPS and Pix 4D drone mapping for survey and volumetric calculations. Minesched software is being used for short-term and life of mine scheduling with Blockbuster software being used to update the ore reserve model with advance grade control drilling assay results. Yanfolila will have an average annual gold production over a Life of Mine (LOM) of eight years of 107 000 ounces although the first full year of operation will see 132 000 ounces being produced. In all, some 8,7 Mt of ore (at an average grade of 2,95 g/t and a LOM strip ratio of 11,9 to 1) will be mined over the LOM to produce a total of 770 000 ounces. The EPCM contractor for the plant and associated infra- structure is South African project house SENET while IMAGRI-SARL – a Malian contractor – is responsible for the civil works and SMPP work. 

A recent photo of the Yanfolila site in Mali (photo: Hummingbird).

14  MODERN MINING  September 2017