Modern Mining September 2015

feature COUNTRY FOCUS – NAMIBIA

North River presses ahead with

Notwithstanding a sharp fall-off in recent months in the price of both zinc and lead, AIM-listed North River Resources remains committed to its Namib project (which involves reopening a past-producing, lead-zinc underground mine in Namibia) and is hoping to make a final investment decision by early next year. In the meantime, as CEO James Beams recently explained to Modern Mining’s Arthur Tassell, the company is continuing its ongoing underground development programme at Namib and is also poised to start the Front End Engineering & Design (FEED) phase of the low-capex, brownfield project.

metal prices at the time and some labour prob- lems. Since acquiring the project in 2009, North River has dewatered the mine (whose two low- est levels had flooded) and returned it to a serviceable state. On surface, it has removed the old plant, which used technology that is now outdated – and which, in any event, had been vandalised subsequent to the mine’s clo- sure and was beyond any refurbishment. A major plus for the project is that it is located in an area which has excellent infra- structure – in terms of water, power and transport links – and a long history of min- ing, with all that this implies in terms of the availability of mining skills and engineering support. The operating mines in the area are Rössing and Langer Heinrich, both large-scale uranium mining operations, and they will soon be joined by the US$2 billion Husab uranium mine, now well into the construction phase. North River completed a Definitive Feasi­ bility Study (DFS) on the project late last year, which detailed a mining/processing operation with annual throughput of 250 000 tonnes at an average grade of 9 % (Pb + Zn) producing 19 100 tonnes of metal in concentrate, as well as 280 000 ounces per annum of silver as a byproduct. It estimated a 13-month schedule to bring the mine into production and an initial mine life of three-and-a-half years (includ- ing ramp up and ramp down) based on a life of mine plan of 813 000 tonnes (including inferred resources) at 6,2 % zinc, 2,7 % lead and 44 ppm silver. The original Deblin operation was very shal- low – the orebody was mined to a depth of

T he mine, located 28 km to the east of Swakopmund, was operated as the Deblin mine (not to be con- fused, incidentally, with the De- blin copper prospect in northern Namibia) from the late 1960s through to 1991. Initially only lead was extracted from the mine but it was later realised that the orebody could also support a zinc mining operation and a zinc flotation circuit was added to the plant in 1974. During its final years of operation (1986 to 1991) the mine milled around 356 000 tonnes of ore (grading around 5,3 % zinc and 1,6 % lead) to produce approximately 38 000 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 14 000 tonnes of lead concentrate. Deblin was abandoned by the owners in 1992, apparently due to a combination of low

Namibia’s Minister of Mines and Energy, Obeth Kand- joze, pictured on site with North River’s CEO, James Beams.

36  MODERN MINING  September 2015