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MODERN MINING
January 2015
MINING News
Canada’s B2Gold Corp reports that the first
gold pour has occurred, ahead of schedule,
at its new Otjikoto gold mine in Namibia.
Otjikoto is only the second Namibian gold
mine and – says B2Gold – has made his-
tory as one of the fastest-moving mine
construction projects in the country.
B2Gold received the Otjikoto mining
licence in late 2012 and bush-clearing
started in January 2013. With the ground-
breaking ceremony held on 26 April, 2013,
construction of the Otjikoto gold mine
was officially underway. Since that time,
the team has placed over 1,3 million m
3
of
earthfill, over 20 000 m
3
of concrete and
has worked over 3 million man hours.
The nations represented in the con-
struction crew include Namibia, South
Africa, Canada, the US, Russia, Ghana,
Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Peru, Chile, the
Philippines and Nicaragua. “As a result of
their incredible work, B2Gold now has a
world-class mine and processing facility in
Namibia,” says the company.
The metallurgical plant at Otjikoto (photo: B2Gold).
New Namibian mine pours its first gold
Bill Lytle, MD of B2Gold Namibia, with Otjikoto’s
first gold bar (photo: B2Gold)
B2Gold’s wholly owned subsidiary,
B2Gold Namibia, entered a transition
phase several months ago from construc-
tion to steady state. The focus of this plan
is the end of construction and preparation
for production and operations.
Otjikoto achieved a substantial and sig-
nificant overall safety performance during
2013 and 2014. During the construction
phase of the project a number of signifi-
cant safety achievements were recorded:
there were no fatal incidents, there was a
year-to-date Lost Time Accident Frequency
rate of only 0,08 (project-to-date 0,16) and
over 2 million man hours were worked
without a single Lost Time Injury (reached
on 29 June 2014).
The mine is located approximately
300 km north of Windhoek between
Otjiwarongo and Otavi and is owned
90 % by B2Gold and 10 % by EVI Mining
ASX-listed Universal Coal has reported
that its Kangala colliery near Delmas in
Mpumalanga has successfully met pro
ject Completion Tests to the satisfaction of
debt financier Rand Merchant Bank (RMB).
Universal says this represents another sig-
nificant milestone for the company, marking
the official transition to steady state opera-
tions for Kangala.
Located near Delmas in the Witbank coal
field of South Africa, Kangala is a 2,4Mt/a run-
of-mine (ROM) operation, with installed plant
capacity to expand to 4,25 Mt/a. The opera-
tion is cashflow positive, with the majority
of its thermal coal product supplying South
Africa’s primary power utility, Eskom.
Kangala colliery passes its project Completion Tests
Completion testing for a continu-
ous period of 90 days commencing on
1 August 2014 and running through to
31 October 2014 was deemed satisfactory
according to the ‘Independent Technical
Advisor’ based on their assessment of the
mine safety record, various designs, mine
plan, mine production performance, prod-
uct yields and qualities, plant performance
and customer delivery.
Universal Coal has now fully com-
plied with its performance obligations
and qualifies for more attractive project
finance facility terms. Furthermore, the
Kangala colliery is now entitled, under
certain circumstances, to make permitted
cash distributions to its shareholders in the
form of shareholder loan repayments and/
or dividend distributions.
Universal Coal has also provided
an update on its NCC (New Clydesdale
Colliery) project in the Kriel District south
of Witbank and says it only awaits approval
of the Section 11 from the Department
of Mineral Resources prior to finalising
the impending NCC acquisition, which is
expected to conclude early this year. At
present, the opencast tendering process is
underway on Roodekop while discussions
are ongoing with underground mining
contractors in order to re-activate the
workings once NCC is started up.
A bankable feasibility study as part
of the debt funding is also progressing,