Modern Mining July 2017

July 2017

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MODERN MINING

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COUNTRY FOCUS:

BOTSWANA

fea

ture

Name change for the T3 project

Although our article here refers to the T3 deposit andT3 project, it should be

pointed out that a new name for the project – as opposed to the deposit – is

in the process of being adopted. The name selected – Motheo (‘Foundation’)

– was the winning entry in a local school competition.

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Tshukudu’s holdings in the

Kalahari Copperbelt.

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The process consists of crushing

and grinding of the ore followed by

sequential rougher and cleaner flota-

tion. Concentrate will be thickened,

filtered and stockpiled prior to being

loaded into containers for storage

and subsequent transport to smelt-

ers. The plant has the potential to

be up-scaled to around 3 Mt/a in the

event production is increased at T3

or additional ore is sourced from sat-

ellite deposits in the region.

According to the Scoping Study,

estimated metal in concentrate pro-

duction for the first three years is

22 kt/a Cu and 660 koz/a Ag, with

a LOM average of 21,8 kt/a Cu and

665 koz/a Ag. The study estimated

the capital cost of the project at

US$135 million.

T3 could ultimately transition

into being a much bigger project than envisaged

in the Scoping Study given the encouraging

results from exploration in the immediate T3

area and further afield. Particularly significant

was the announcement by MOD in February

this year that a 75 m zone with multiple inter-

vals of copper sulphides had been intersected at

T3, starting at 247 m downhole depth, approxi-

mately 35 m below the T3 resource. A resource

upgrade for T3 is expected shortly.

If T3 does become a mine, it could be the

first operation – if one discounts the now

defunct Boseto mine – to exploit the Kalahari

Copperbelt although this is by no means a

certainty as Cupric Canyon, via its subsidiary

Khoemacau Copper Mining, is also looking to

start up its Zone 5 underground mine in 2019

or 2020. Between them, the two proposed

mines have the potential to put the Kalahari

Copperbelt on the map as a significant copper

producing district, small on a world scale but

important for Botswana in its attempts to diver-

sify from its current over-reliance on diamonds.

Report by Arthur Tassell, photos courtesy of MOD Resources