Modern Mining July 2017

COUNTRY FOCUS: BOTSWANA

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

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

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

Tshukudu’s holdings in the Kalahari Copperbelt.

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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July 2017  MODERN MINING  43