Modern Mining September 2015

feature COUNTRY FOCUS – NAMIBIA

Otjikoto gold mine bursts out of the The new Otjikoto gold mine in Namibia, which achieved commercial production – one month ahead of schedule – at the end of February this year, is performing strongly, justifying the decision of Canadian gold miner B2Gold Corp to invest US$244 million in its development. Otjikoto is one of only two gold mines in Namibia – and by far the biggest – and can justly claim to have rejuvenated Namibia’s gold mining sector.

Lytle as MD of B2Gold Namibia, who has now moved on to fresh duties within B2Gold (as VP, Africa). His successor is Mark Dawe, who has huge experience of mining in Namibia as he was previously MD of the Okorusu fluor- spar mine, Namibia’s sole fluorspar operation. Okorusu – located quite close to Otjikoto – operated successfully for many years but was recently closed due to the depletion of the orebody. Dawe is also a past-President of the Chamber of Mines of Namibia. An entirely conventional open-pit operation, Otjikoto currently operates a fleet of 12 Cat 777D (100-ton capacity) haul trucks loaded by a Liebherr 9250 hydraulic excavator, a Liebherr 984 hydraulic excavator and a Cat 6018 hydrau- lic face shovel. Additional ancillary equipment such as Cat D9 and D10 dozers, Cat 834K rub- ber tyre dozers, and Cat 16M motor graders supports the load and haul activities. Drilling is currently being undertaken by one Cat 6240 drill, two Sandvik DK25 drills, one Cat 5125 drill and a Sandvik DP1500i drill. As the mine continues to expand and go deeper, the mining fleet will also expand to meet required produc- tion targets. On the processing side, the mine uses grav- ity circuits and leach/CIP processes to recover the gold. The plant was built with a 2,5 Mt/a capacity but B2Gold announced last year that it would be expanded to allow it to treat 3 Mt/a.

L ocated 300 km north of Windhoek and 70 km north of the town of Otjiwarongo, the Otjikoto deposit, which was overlain by calcrete, was discovered in the late 1990s by Anglovaal Mining which was exploring for base metals. The pace of development, howev- er, was slow until B2Gold – the sixth company to be involved at Otjikoto – acquired the proj- ect in 2011 with a determination to bring the deposit to account as fast as possible. The com- pany received its mining licence in December 2012, bush clearing started in January 2013 and in April of the same year the official ground- breaking ceremony was held, marking the start of the construction phase. Just 20 months later (in December 2014), the mine was able to pour its first gold, well within schedule. The project’s development was led by Bill

32  MODERN MINING  September 2015