49 / 82
January 2015
MODERN MINING
47
Top projects
T
he first of our Botswanan projects is
the
Karowe
diamond mine of Can-
ada’s Lucara Diamond Corp. Locat-
ed in the Orapa Kimberlite Field
(OKF) and only commissioned in
2012, it has proven to be a spectacular success
– with the big surprise being the unusually high
number of large stones it has produced, several
of them exceeding 200 carats. To cater for this
large-diamond population and also to handle
the harder unweathered ore being encountered
as mining moves into deeper parts of the ore-
body, a substantial US$55 million upgrade of
the plant is currently underway.
Interestingly, the upgrade incorporates new
technology that Lucara believes represents a
‘first’ – not only in Botswana but worldwide.
This is the use of X-ray Transmission (XRT)
machines in a primary diamond recovery role.
The irony of Karowe is that the kimberlite it
exploits – AK6 – was discovered by De Beers
around 45 years ago. Due to limitations in the
exploration technology and methods then being
used, both its size and grade were under-esti-
mated and the true potential of the orebody was
only realised more than 30 years later when the
kimberlite was subjected to re-evaluation.
Moving to Lesotho, Firestone Diamonds,
now headed by Stuart Brown, who spent 20
years with De Beers, is well into the construc-
tion phase of its
Liqhobong
mine. Although
Liqhobong has been mined in the past (a pilot
processing plant was erected on site 10 years
ago to treat ore from the small satellite pipe),
the new project is focusing on the main pipe
and is designed to produce over a million carats
In our regular Top Mining Projects feature we look at projects distinguished by their size, innovation
or pioneering spirit. With mining in Southern Africa generally in a depressed state, finding projects
meeting these criteria is not easy but we have identified three that fit the bill. Two are diamond
mining developments, one in Botswana and one in Lesotho, while the third is a bold copper mining
initiative in Botswana. It says something about the parlous state of South African mining that all our
projects are located in neighbouring states.
The Karowe diamond mine of Lucara – one of our Top Projects (photo: Arthur Tassell).
SOUTHERN AFRICA’S
TOP MINING PROJECTS
a year. This is an exceptional figure for Lesotho,
although the diamonds produced will gener-
ally be of much lower value than those from
the nearby Letšeng mine, currently the flagship
of diamond mining in Lesotho.
Liqhobong will not be an innovative mine
in the sense of pioneering new technology but
what makes it exceptional is the fact that Brown
and his team have been able to secure the fund-
ing required for its development in a market
which is resistant to new mining projects – par-
ticularly those being undertaken by juniors.
Moving back to Botswana, the third of our
Top Projects is the
Khoemacau
copper mine of
Cupric Canyon Capital, which is on the brink of
construction. Located in the new copper mining
district between Maun and Ghanzi in north-
west Botswana, Khoemacau is a bold venture
given current conditions in the commodities
market – and also the fact that the only other
copper mine in this area has under-performed
since being opened in 2012. Cupric is confi-
dent, however, that the Khoemacau orebody
can be mined effectively using underground
methods (as opposed to the open-pit methods
used by the neighbouring operation) and that it
has a highly viable project on its hands.
Khoemacau will have an ore treatment
capacity of 3,6 Mt/a and is designed to produce
up to 50 000 t/a of copper in concentrate. This
is not a big figure by world standards but excep-
tional for Botswana, which is not noted as a
copper producer. The new mine, which should
enter production in 2018, will also produce
silver as a by-product although this will only
account for about 10 % of the revenue stream.