Modern Mining June 2015

MINING News

Kipoi plant notches up record production in May

275 000 4E ounces per year. Since 2012 operating costs have con- tinued to escalate in Rand terms. As a result of increased estimated costs of construction, regulatory changes now requiring the installation of a vinyl liner for the tailings storage facility, declines in market prices for metals and delays to ramp up plans, peak funding is currently estimated to have increased by approxi- mately 2 % to US$514 million.  During May 2015 Tiger energised the recently installed 30 MVA transformer, which is now being run up to provide grid power to Kipoi. This is a key milestone amongst a number of power supply initia- tives Tiger is currently implementing.  25 kt/a copper cathode operation. The Kipoi operating team is now realis- ing the price benefits resulting from the growing supply of sulphuric acid available in the Southern African markets. Sulphuric acid is the principal reagent used to irri- gate the heap leach pads and is the second largest component of processing costs at Kipoi. Whereas 2015 budgets were set using US$365/t as the assumed price for acid, long-term contracts have recently been entered into for delivery at a cost of approximately US$235/t. The future price of sulphuric acid remains under significant downward pressure.

7 and 11 is in progress and the Meren- sky stockpile amounts to over 100 000 tonnes of material. At the South mine, the Merensky Reef has been inter- cepted with mining in progress. First production from the Project 1 mine is expected in the fourth quarter of this year with a two-year ramp-up required to reach steady-state production of Tiger believes the combination of items 2 and 3 alone could increase monthly pro- duction from the SX/EW plant by as much as 30 % for a very modest capital out- lay, and the debottlenecking initiatives are both complementary and indepen- dent of any potential future expansion of operations at Kipoi from the current be debottlenecked to increase production and reduce operating costs. These initiatives will be assessed with a view to being rolled out over the next 12 months and include: (1) minimising material rehandling by utilising the over- land conveyor from the former HMS plant to the agglomerator; (2) utilising avail- able current to the electro-winning circuit through addition of extra electro-winning cells; and (3) bringing forward the HMS fines delivery through the addition of a small (40 t/h) modular tank leach.

ASX-listed Tiger Resources has provided an update on the operating performance of the solvent-extraction and electro- winning (SX/EW) plant at its Kipoi copper project in Katanga in the DRC following completion of the first 12 months of cath- ode production. The SX/EW plant was commissioned in May 2014, ramp-up of production to the 25 000 t/a nameplate design capacity was achieved by August 2014, and since then the plant has continued to demonstrate its ability to produce LME Grade A equivalent quality cathode consistently at or above budgeted rates of production. May 2015 returned a record plant out- put, with 2 306 tonnes of copper cathode produced for the month. Having operated the SX/EWplant for 12 months now, the operations team at Kipoi has identified areas where the facility can

WBJV Project 1 mine heads for late 2015 start-up Platinum Group Metals recently report- ed that its Western Bushveld Joint Ven- ture (WBJV) – Project 1 mine near Sun City was 78 % complete with over 1 900 people working on site, 19 % of them from local communities. The EPCM con- tractor is DRA.

At the North mine (seen in this pho- to), development to open blocks 12, 6,

June 2015  MODERN MINING  5