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August 2015
MODERN MINING
29
NIOBIUM
on multiple fronts
Centre:
Drilling at the
Panda Hill project site in
Tanzania.
Below:
Stylised processing
route for the Panda Hill
niobium project.
Hill (with an option to purchase the balance),
is a junior company. The project is nevertheless
well resourced with Cradle having executed a
binding agreement with Tremont Investments
recently in terms of which Tremont will pro-
vide up to US$20 million to earn up to a 50 %
stake of Cradle’s interest in Panda Hill. It is
anticipated that post the farm-in and option
exercise, Cradle’s interest will remain at 50 %.
Tremont is described as “an African-focused
mining platform backed by Denham Capital,
a leading energy and resources global private
equity firm.” Tremont is advised by Pangea
Exploration, led, of course, by well-known
South African explorationist Rob Still.
As evidence that it is serious about develop-
ing Panda Hill, Cradle has recently appointed
Dennis Cooke as General Manager of the proj-
ect. A metallurgist by profession, he has over 25
years’ experience in the mining industry and is
well-known in South African mining circles as
he was, for 11 years, the GM of the Vergenoeg
fluorspar mine north of Pretoria. He will be
responsible for the construction, commission-
ing and ultimate steady state operations and
performance of the Panda Hill mine.
The project is now well into the Feasibility
Study (FS) phase. The same consultants who
were involved with the PFS have been retained
for the FS, namely MDM Engineering, responsi-
ble for the plant and infrastructure component
of the study, Coffey (geology), SRK Consulting
(mining and geotechnical), SGS Canada (met-
allurgical test work), SLR Consulting (tailings
and groundwater study) and MTL Consulting
(environmental).
The PFS outlined a base case project based
on an open-pit mining operation providing
2 Mt/a mill feed over a 30-year life of mine
(LOM) with material being treated through
milling and a single stage flotation process to
produce a concentrate suitable for standard
ferroniobium (FeNb) production in an on-site
converter. This is the same scale of operation
that was considered in the Scoping Study and