PROJECTS AND EXPLORATION
EARLY COAL AT BELFAST
• Location: South Africa
• Phase: Production
• Resource: Coal
South African coal producer Exxaro’s R3.3-billion Belfast mine
in Mpumalanga started producing high grade thermal coal six
months earlier than expected. Production started towards the end
of 2019. The mine was initially expected to start delivering coal
in 2020. Belfast broke ground in July 2018 and is a first-of-its-kind
digital mine. The mine ranks as the last good-quality A-grade,
high-yield coal deposit in Mpumalanga, where construction
began in November 2017.
The LOM (Life of Mine) of the Belfast mine is 17 years, making it
a high value-add coal project in the Mpumalanga region, and
the rest of South Africa as it further bolsters the growth of the
coal business.
With an immediate focus, the Belfast plant will primarily produce
A-Grade, export-quality coal (typical 6 000 kcal/kg) at a projected
volume of 2.2 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), and a secondary-
quality product (typical 21.5 MJ/kg) for local use or export of
about 0.5 Mtpa.
According to Lazarus Ramashilabele, business unit manager
at Belfast, the mine will be able to produce 2.7 million tonnes
(Mt) of good-quality thermal coal a year for at least the next 17
years, starting in 2020, in the first phase of development. “There
is also potential for a second phase, depending on market
conditions, which could take the life of the mine to 30 years,”
says Ramashilabele.
Mali Lithium has commissioned global engineering firm Hatch
to assist with a scoping study into the downstream processing
of the 6% Li2O product to be produced from its Goulamina
lithium project in Mali.
According to Mali Lithium managing director Chris Evans, this
will be considered as a stand-alone study and will not impact
the development of the already highly attractive Goulamina
Lithium Project.
“Following discussions with downstream producers and
potential customers, we have identified an opportunity to
produce highly sought lithium products – lithium sulphate
and lithium oxide – that could be more easily refined than the
final lithium carbonate or hydroxide products on site at the
Goulamina mine, says Evans.
He adds that these can be considered as intermediary downstream
lithium products that can then be converted into the final, more
technically difficult to produce, battery grade lithium carbonate or
hydroxide in existing conversion plants in China or at new chemical
facilities in Europe, closer to the point of battery manufacture.
In addition to realising a premium price for these products, the
potential to produce it on site at Goulamina could significantly
reduce overall product transport costs for the project because of
their lower volume compared with spodumene concentrate.
Mali Lithium has engaged Hatch to assist the Company to
estimate order of magnitude capital costs to construct the
required process plant at the Goulamina mine to produce the
value-add lithium products, which can be used by customers to
produce lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide to their own
specifications.
In addition, Hatch will provide inputs to the Company to enable
operating costs to be estimated. The scoping study will be
completed in parallel with the ongoing Definitive Feasibility Study
(DFS) that is underway for the mining and processing required
to produce the base case 6% spodumene concentrate from the
project.
NEW PROSPECT AT DIBA
• Location: Mali
Belfast mine ranks as the last good-quality A-grade, high-yield coal
deposit in Mpumalanga.
DOWNSTREAM SCANNING
• Location: Mali
• Phase: Exploration
• Resource: Gold
AIM listed Altus Strategies has defined Diba SW, a potentially
significant new prospect at the Diba gold project. Diba is about
13km south of the Sadiola gold mine, in the Kenieba Window gold
belt in the west of the Republic of Mali.
Steven Poulton, CE of Altus says that the prospect is defined by
a discontinuous 1.2km long gold in termite soil anomaly along
the flanks of a ferricrete caped ridge and is also coincident with a
VTEM geophysical anomaly.
• Phase: Exploration
• Resource: Lithium
‘’Based on the discovery of Diba SW, we have reinterpreted the
historical geochemical, geophysical and topographical data
at Diba. This work has defined at least three further potential
prospects, increasing the total number of new prospects at Diba
to six. Given the number and potential scale of these prospects,
we believe the opportunity to increase the size of the historic
resource at Diba is considerable,” says Poulton.
Diba hosts a near surface, shallow dipping, historical oxide
resource with a number of exceptional drill intersects,
Drilling core at Mali Lithium’s Goulamina mine.
www. africanmining.co.za
African Mining Publication
African Mining
African Mining January 2020
7