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MODERN MINING
July 2015
MINING News
Diesel Power awarded
Elandspruit contract
Wescoal Mining has appointed Diesel Power
Open Cast Mining as the mining contractor
for its new Elandspruit mine near Middelburg
in Mpumalanga. Mining activities have com-
menced and Elandspruit will produce its first
Run of Mine during July 2015.
The mining division is on track to produce
approximately 335 000 tons of Run of Mine
(ROM) per month during the final quarter of
the current financial year. This is equivalent
to approximately 4 Mt ROM on an annualised
basis.
TheWater Use Licence for Elandspruit was
secured early this year and the official open-
ing of the mine will take place in August.
The facility will eventually double Wescoal’s
mining output and is fundamental to the
continued growth, sustainability and profit-
ability of the Group with 80 per cent of its
production supplied to Eskom through long-
term contracts.
Canada’s True Gold Mining Inc, listed on
the TSX-V, which is developing the Karma
gold project in Burkina Faso, reports it
has drawn down an additional US$14 mil-
lion of the US$100 million financing from
Franco-Nevada (Barbados) Corporation
and Sandstorm Gold Bank Ltd. This is
the third draw down that True Gold has
made under the facility, bringing the total
True Gold’s Karma site now a hive of activity
amount drawn to US$71,6 million.
True Gold says that construction at
Karma remains on schedule with the
planned placing of ore on the heap leach
pads in early 2016 and first gold pour
anticipated for the end of Q1-2016.
Christian Milau, President and CEO of
True Gold, stated, “There is an atmosphere
of excitement on site with a workforce of
over 500 focusing on earthworks and
the processing plant final assembly.
We have progressed rapidly with
site development and construction,
highlighted by commissioning of
the mine fleet, completion of the
raw water pond excavation and ini-
tial construction of the raw water
pipeline.”
Excavation of the Pregnant Leach
Solution (PLS) pond has commenced,
stripping of Cell 1 of the heap leach
pad has been completed and assem-
bly of the hard rock crusher has
begun. Assembly of the Absorption,
Desorption and Refining (ADR) plant
structural steel has also started. The
mine fleet of six Komatsu 785 trucks,
a PC 3000 excavator and a WA800
loader has been commissioned.
Located 185 km north of Ouaga
dougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, Karma
is a technically simple open-pit, heap
leach mine which will produce an average
of 97 000 ounces a year over an eight-
and-half-year mine life (although further
phases of development are anticipated).
The project has a capex of US$131,5 mil-
lion with the estimated payback period
being just 16 months. South Africa’s SENET
is the EPCM contractor.
Construction underway at Karma late last year. The site has progressed considerably since then (photo: True Gold).
Employees receive training on one of the newly commissioned Komatsu 785 haul trucks. The mine has a
fleet of six of the trucks (photo: True Gold).