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May 2016
MODERN MINING
23
GOLD
Above:
The milling section
of the plant.
Left:
Night view of the
New Luika process plant.
Upgrades commissioned
in 2014 have increased
capacity to 50 000 tonnes
per month.
a clear strategy in place to take production
through to at least 2022.”
Bradbury, who served as Shanta’s COO for
three months before being appointed CEO,
is a mining engineer (he graduated from the
University of Cardiff in the UK with a BSc in
Mining Engineering and also has a PhD in the
same discipline) with plenty of African experi-
ence under his belt. His previous executive roles
have included being Senior VP for AngloGold
Ashanti in Ghana – where he was responsible
for surface and underground operations pro-
ducing 600 000 ounces a year – and COO for
Anvil Mining, operator of the Dikulushi and
Kinsevere copper mines in the DRC.
Explaining what attracted him to taking on
the position of Shanta CEO, he says that New
Luika is a high-quality, low-cost, high-cash
generation asset. “The only thing it has miss-
ing is a long life but we’re working on this
and are confident that our on-mine and wider
regional exploration in the Lupa goldfield will
deliver new resources,” he says. “Shanta also,
of course, has a second mine – Singida – in the
wings. This is a development project with sur-
face and underground mining potential with
significant exploration upside.”
Bradbury is based in Dar es Salaam but
notes that there is now a highly experienced
management team on site at New Luika, led
by GM Scott Yelland. He is a graduate of the
Camborne School of Mines and started his
more than 30-year career in mining working in
the Cornish tin mines. He subsequently worked
in many parts of the world and before joining
Shanta was VP Operations of Konkola Copper
Mines in Zambia.
Yelland’s deputy is Honest Mrema, a
Tanzanian national who is a mining engineer
with 19 years’ experience in Tanzania and Mali.
Reviewing New Luika’s performance during
2015, Bradbury says that as the year started,
the emphasis was very much on optimising
the open-pit mining operation and aligning
ore production to the increased capacity of the
plant complex. “Ore production had not kept
up with the increased plant capacity and there
was a reliance on using stockpiled material to
supplement feed to the mill. In addition, the
strip ratios were as high as 20 to 1 in a fall-
ing gold price environment. To rectify these
problems, we redesigned both our main pits –
Bauhinia Creek and Luika – during the first half
of the year.”
Bradbury says the results came through in
the second half of 2015. “The strip ratio was
reduced to 9 to 1 and ore production caught up
with plant capacity. Closer control of mining
Long section of BC (Bauhinia
Creek) and Luika looking
towards the north.