Mining Breaks

BlueRock Diamonds has resumed production at its Kareevlei diamond mine in South Africa's Kimberley region after reaching agreement to hire a replacement crusher.
It says the rental unit will allow the mine to operate normally while it assesses the fault that forced it to shut down its installed cone crusher in the crushing circuit.
The UK-based miner has taken an option on a long-term hire of the replacement unit, just in case.
It still expects changes it has made to Kareevlei's crushing circuit will result in improved plant throughput rates.

Vast Resources expects to gain the right to mine its 80%-owned Baita Plai polymetallic mine in Romania early next month after gaining Economic Ministry approval.
Chief executive Andrew Prelea says the right to mine Baita Plai copper-silver-zinc-lead-gold-tungsten-molybdenum project, which hosts an orebody of 1.8Mt @ 6% CuEq, will transform the UK-based company's production profile.

Plans by AngloGold Ashanti to revive its Obuasi gold mine in Ghana can move ahead after parliament ratified new regulatory and fiscal agreements over the mothballed high-grade, long-life deposit.
AngloGold is continuing a $US31M FEED and preparatory work program announced in Feb 2018 to transform Obuasi into a modern, productive operation.
CEO Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan says the redevelopment can support at least 20 years of production at very competitive costs.

Australian-based explorer Castle Minerals is contemplating an end to over a decade of gold exploration in Ghana, calling for expressions of interest in its wholly owned subsidiary Carlie Mining.
Castle has appointed advisors Industrie Capital to manage the sale process of Carlie, which holds all its Ghanaian interests.
The company announced in April it planned to relinquish or reduce 17 exploration licences in Ghana to save costs, but has now gone further to examine a full exit.
Castle is continuing a search for conglomerate-hosted gold in WA's Pilbara region and evaluating other project opportunities.

Brazil-focused gold miner Beadell Resources has terminated its open pit mining contract with contractor MACA at its Tucano Gold Mine in N Brazil, with terms agreed for the payment of $A61M owed to the fellow Western Australia-based company by June 30, 2022.

Australian-based WAF is targeting a mid-2020 start of production after posting an updated FS outlining high margins for its Sanbrado gold mine in Burkina Faso.
The study outlines a $US185M openpit and underground development to produce an 133,000ozpa at AISC of $640/oz over an 11-year LOM, starting with 211,000ozpa at $551/oz in years 1-5.

CIMIC Group’s global mining services provider, Thiess, has won the $A225M contract to provide mining services at BHP Nickel West’s Rocky’s Reward Nickel Mine at Leinster, 400km N of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
The 34-month contract incorporates a further cutback at the Rocky’s Reward pit and works at a satellite pit. It also includes mine planning and engineering, drilling and blasting, mining overburden and ore, and rehandling services to the Leinster processing facility. Nickel West’s operations comprise the Mt Keith, Cliffs and Leinster mines, the Kalgoorlie smelter, the Kambalda concentrator and the Kwinana refinery, S of Perth.

Indonesian coal producer Kangaroo has cleared outstanding borrowings owed to largest shareholder PT Bayan Resources by supplying it 68,157t of coal inventory from subsidiary PT Mamahak Coal Mining.
The $US4.4M net proceeds of the sale also enabled Australian-based Kangaroo to settle other liabilities.

Recently established Equinox Gold plans to spin off all its copper assets into a newly incorporated, stand-alone company, Solaris Copper, 60% going to Equinox Gold shareholders with the rest held by Equinox Gold.

African energy and resource company Kibo has posted a maiden SAMREC-compliant resource of 303Mt mineable in-situ coal at its recently acquired Mabesekwa coal project in Botswana.
Kibo holds 85% in partnership with Botswana energy company Shumba on the proposed coal mine and coal-fired thermal power plant at Mabesekwa.
The FS-stage project is being advanced by Kibo in tandem with its Mbeya coal to power project in Tanzania and Bengta independent power project in Mozambique.

Cobalt specialist Celsius has extended the deadline for completion of a scoping study on its Opuwo project in Namibia to early in the Dec qtr to allow further metallurgical testing of potential operating and capital cost reductions.
Celsius says tests already done significantly lowered operating cost estimates by increasing concentrate feed and reducing leaching intensity.
They also pointed to further possible improvements, which will be tested by SGS Perth over the next 8 weeks.
Project director Pine van Wyk says Opuwo's size and global significance warrants more study time to achieve an optimised project design.

Australian developer Heron has switched to rail for major product haulage from its Woodlawn mine in NSW, awarding the key logistics contract to local privateer Crawfords Freightlines.
With commissioning due in the Dec qtr, Crawfords will haul Woodlawn's separate zinc, copper and lead concentrates in sealed containers by road from the mine 50km to Goulburn.
They'll transfer to rail for the 250km to Port Kembla and Port Botany for export.
Heron says it's a more cost-effective solution that eliminates up to 6,000 B-double truck movements a year along the busy Hume Hwy.

Australian miner Stanmore Coal has awarded NRW Holdings unit Golding Contractors a 12-month full mining services contract extension at its Isaac Plains East project in NSW.
The contract, worth about $A93M, continues the range of mine operating and maintenance activities in its current Isaac Plains contract and maintains a partnership with Stanmore going back to 2015.

TMT has outlined a $A380M capital development of its 100%-owned Gabanintha vanadium project in Western Australia to produce 13,000tpa V2O5 at operating costs of $US4.27/lb over 13 years.
MD Ian Prentice says the study, based on indicated resources of 21.6Mt @ 0.9%, confirms the project as high-value and technically strong with relatively low risk in a market desperate for new production.
TMT will move immediately on to a DFS targeting a production start in 2021.

It's back to the drawing board for Australian explorer MinRex Resources.
Despite encouraging early results from due diligence that had it enthusing about a "prospective game-changer", MinRex has terminated its planned acquisition of Clean Power Resources and its Pacific Express nickel-cobalt-scandium project in NSW.
MinRex remains focused on gold exploration in WA's Pilbara region and its Heemskirk tin project in Tasmania.

Int’l base metals miner MMG is selling its 90% stake in S Laos’ Sepon copper-gold mine owner Lane Xang Minerals to big Chinese gold producer Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining for $US275M.
The current open pit copper operation that has a projected LoM to around 2020, but with potential to be a primary gold operation.

Australian-based explorer Elementos has signed a non-binding MoU with Empire Tin Mining to explore the potential for a major new tin mining project on the site of a 100-year-old mine in Malaysia.
CEO Chris Creagh says the Temengor project could sustain a long-term operation that complements its developmetn-stage Cleveland tin project in NW Tasmania.

Orion Mine Finance and affiliates have launched a $C1.47-a-share cash bid for Dalradian Resources and its flagship $6Moz+ resource Curraghinalt Gold Project in N Ireland, valuing the target at $537M on a fully diluted in-the-money basis.
The definitive arrangement agreement already has support agreements accounting for 31.4% from Dalradian directors/senior officers, certain funds, Orion and others.

West Australian company Pilbara Minerals is targeting the first concentrate shipments from its 100%-owned Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum project in Aug after achieving production of concentrates a week after it started commissioning.
Pilbara expects the ramp-up of the plant's overall production capacity to take 6-9 months.
It will occur alongside the continued DSO mining under Pilbara's mine-gate sale, process and export deal with Atlas Iron.

One of Japan's leading global integrated trading/investment businesses Sumitomo has completed its $US48M acquisition of a 5% stake in Minera Yanacocha and S America’s largest gold mine, joining partners Newmont Mining (51.35%) and Buenaventura (43.65%).
Yanacocha, 800km NE of Lima, Peru, has been in production since 1993. Late last year, Newmont approved full funding for the Quecher Main deposit, expected to extend Yanacocha’s oxide LoM to 2027, with potential development of the project’s sulfide deposits, taking LoM out to 2039.
Sumitomo is also currently partnered with Buenaventura at Freeport’s Cerro Verde copper mine in S Peru.