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MODERN MINING
September 2016
MINING News
Advisian, the strategic advisory arm
of global project delivery company
WorleyParsons, is utilising a pioneering
and successfully proven methodology
called StepWise which was developed in-
house to undertake two studies for BCL,
a state-owned copper and nickel mining
company in Botswana.
Advisian is in the process of finalis-
ing a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) for BCL’s
Maibele North copper and nickel project
while a Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS)
for a new open-pit mine at the existing
Pioneering StepWise methodology used on BCL projects
Selkirk underground nickel mine near
Francistown is in progress.
Donovan Munro, Principal Mining
Engineer at Advisian, says the StepWise
methodology has played an instrumental
role in the early determination of finan-
cial viability for the two projects. In both
instances the StepWise process has been
able to identify early on the challenges to
economic viability that would only have
been detected much later in the proj-
ect cycle, had purely traditional project
delivery methodologies been used.
“We have utilised the StepWise pro-
cess to quantify potential and value and
to this end developed an extensive range
of parameters and options that were then
ranked utilising the unique StepWise
methodology in order to accurately
determine the most financially viable
options for the projects,” says Marthinus
Odendaal, the project manager on both
projects.
Each phase of the project study
(Conceptual, Pre-Feasibility and Feasibility)
should incrementally and realistically add
The Selebi-Phikwe and WorleyParsons project team.
BMR Group enters into option agreement for Zambian licence
AIM-listed BMR Group – which is focused
on the recovery of lead and zinc from the
tailings deposits of Zambia’s oldest mine
at Kabwe – reports that it has entered
into a 60-day exclusive option agree-
ment with Bushbuck Resources Limited of
Zambia to acquire Bushbuck’s Large Scale
Prospecting Licence 19653-HQ-LPL (Star
Zinc) in an area to the immediate north
of Lusaka, for a total cash consideration of
US$1 million plus taxes.
BMR believes the acquisition of Star
Zinc would represent an important strate-
gic step for the company as the in-situ ore
contains high grade zinc which is planned
to be either blended with the tailings from
Kabwe’s leach plant residues to improve
metal recoveries or used to raise the plant
head grade to increase Zn production at
BMR’s proposed processing plant at Kabwe.
This is expected to enhance the quality of
the product, subject to test work to confirm
its compatibility. This, in turn, the company
expects, would underpin the long-term
future of the Kabwe operation.
BMR’s first priority will be to undertake
a drilling programme on the karst fill/sap-
rolitic material in the area of the present
open pit to determine the extent of the, as
yet, untested surface mineralisation and to
establish a mineable resource. BMR plans
initially to spend up to US$200 000 over the
next 18 months.
Wardell Armstrong International was
instructed by BMR earlier this year to pre-
pare a technical report for the company
into the geological potential of Star Zinc
and review the historic and in-house metal-
lurgical test work results.
The Star Zinc licence comprises 83 km
2
and is situated approximately 15 km NNW
of Lusaka on the Great North Road and
90 km from Kabwe. The deposit was mined
briefly in the 1950s by open-pit methods
with the ore treated at the Kabwe mine.
The deposit was drilled by Chartered
Exploration (the geological exploration
arm of Anglo American) in the 1960s. Later,
AVMIN Development (Zambia) Ltd acquired
the licence and undertook a limited amount
of exploration.
Based on Chartered Exploration’s 1960s
drilling programme, in January 2015
CSA Global reinterpreted the results and