Mine excursion
Kongo River , a subsidiary of Teichmann SA , was appointed as the earthworks and civil contractor for the airstrip at Bisie .
Volvo , Scania or MAN ,” says Faber . The Atlas Copco LHD is a 10-tonne class loader and the tipper trucks will be equipped with an 18-cm ³ bin . When fully loaded , the truck will carry about 20t of material . The specific gravity of the Bisie ore is 3.5t / m ³, and Faber says the bin sizes on the rock moving equipment had to be reduced to prevent damage to the hydraulic system , suspension and transmission . The trucks will tip the ore on surface stockpiles , from where it will be fed by Bell front-end loaders into the processing plant .
A set of primary , secondary and tertiary crushers will reduce the run of mine ore from 450mm to 80 % passing minus 10mm . The minus 10mm material forms the feed for the jigs . The underflow from the jigs is fed through a series of shaking tables and spirals to create a final concentrate containing about 62 % tin . A flotation step is required to remove the sulphide minerals from the tin concentrate , following which the concentrate is thickened and filtered to reduce its moisture content . Filtration will be carried out on horizontal belt filters , supplied by South African company Roytech .
Shipping out
Once bagged , the tin will have to be trucked to Goma , and this is where the operation becomes tricky . The road to Goma is in a very bad condition , however , Alphamin is assisting the North Kivu Province in upgrading the road over the next six months . The strategy is to have rough terrain 4 x 4 trucks cover the portion of road from the village of Logu to the mine ( about 35km ), which is extremely rough conditions . At Logu the product is then reloaded onto normal road trucks that will transport it further to Goma , where the customers will take over the logistics , and truck the tin to either Dar es Salaam in Tanzania or to Mombasa in Kenya . TMK , a local DRC transport company , has been contracted to take care of the transport . The company has invested in a fleet of 18 rough terrain trucks which will supplement its current fleet of normal road trucks .
“ Logistics is a significant part of this project , and one the major challenges ,” says Faber .
Dealing with the bumpy road
The journey to Walikale and from there to the mine is bumpy , but rewarding . There is no doubt that further challenges await the brave and competent team at Bisie . These will probably never totally disappear . Investing in the DRC is a high-risk strategy , building a mine from scratch in the eastern parts of the DRC , is , well , not for the faint hearted . The major risks , says Robinson , are the infrastructure constraints , political risks , the artisanal question and security .
[ 20 ] MINING MIRROR JANUARY 2018