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May 2017
MODERN MINING
23
RARE EARTHS
on fast track to production
Gravity surveying in the
project area.
View of the Gasagwe min-
ing area. The trial mining
phase will see 3 338 tonnes
of ore being produced from
Gasagwe.
of production, we only have to mine and treat
a fraction of the tonnages that other projects
would require to get to the same point.”
The deposit also lends itself to very simple,
straightforward mining. “In our first mining
area, Gasagwe, we’ll be manual bench min-
ing in 1 m ‘steps’ to expose the veins in which
the mineralisation is contained. The need for
mechanised equipment is minimal and in fact
the entire cost of our mining fleet – essentially
just some TLBs and a tractor-trailer – is bud-
geted at less than US$600 000. The mining will
only take place from the outcrops at surface to
a depth of about 30 to 50 m and no drilling and
blasting will be required,” says Eales.
He adds that the second deposit to be mined
– Gashirwe West – will require underground
extraction. “Here again, though, the proposed
method is very simple – essentially it will
involve the use of up-dip, room-and-pillar
manual mining with access to the mining areas
being provided by relatively short hand-dug
adits driven into the hillsides. No expensive
infrastructure such as shafts is needed.”
The Gakara project is located in hilly terrain
in Western Burundi and is roughly a 90-min-
ute drive from the capital city, Bujumbura.
The mineralisation at the site was discovered
in the 1930s during the Belgian colonial era
and a mine was established in 1948 which
produced intermittently from a number of
deposits through to 1978 when a decline in
rare earth element (REE) prices rendered opera-
tions uneconomic. Most of the mining over this
period was by open-pit methods although some
underground mining was undertaken.
“The total production was modest by mod-
ern standards, with only around 5 000 tonnes
of vein material being extracted over 30 years,”
states Eales. “We’re aiming to produce roughly
5 000 tonnes a year – and ultimately twice this
figure.”
An interesting point is that Gakara will be
producing a high-grade concentrate rather than