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January 2017
MODERN MINING
29
Top projects
GRAPHITE
The lined raw water pond
(foreground) with reagent
store and process water
pond in the background.
Thickener installation with
process water pond in the
background.
rather than an impact crusher to maintain the
integrity of the ore while reducing block size,”
said Strange. “The process plant has been
designed with sufficient flexibility to ensure
market demand for different particle sizes can
be met as markets with different product speci-
fications require. The final graphite concentrate
product will be classified into five particle size
classes based on extensive consultation with
global graphite end users.”
The structural steel for the plant is being
brought in from South Africa while equip-
ment and major plant components are being
sourced from a number of countries, among
them Australia, China, Singapore, South Africa,
Thailand and Vietnam.
The power requirement for the project will
be around 11 MW and this will be provided by
an on-site power station. This is being supplied
by South Africa-based Zest Energy, part of the
Zest WEG Group, and should be operational
in Q1 2017. Water for the mining and plant
operations will be sourced from the Chipembe
Dam, located 12 km from the Balama site, with
this supply being supplemented by rainwater
collection and pit dewatering, while water for
the accommodation camp is provided by bore-
holes. Syrah’s water licence allows up to 2 Mℓ/a
to be drawn from Chipembe Dam, which will
be connected to Balama by pipeline.
There are no major environmental issues
associated with the Balama project – which
received its environmental licence in April
2015 after completion of a thorough EIA –
but Syrah is nevertheless determined to run a
‘green’ operation. The operational ‘footprint’
has been minimised to avoid clearance of the
indigenous forest which is the source of a large
number of products which sustain local com-
munities. Similarly, two large conservation
areas of remnant vegetation on a chain of gra-
nitic outcrops have been set aside to protect