Global projects and exploration
The Marthinusen & Coutts team that successfully executed the sub-assembly of
the six gearless mill drives. Back, from left: Wesley Ludeman (assistant winder),
Chico Bernades (field service technician), Shepard Chigmwa (senior winder),
and Keith van den Heever (assistant winder). Front, from left: Rico Coertze
(assistant winder) and Wynand Willemse (senior field service technician).
Panama
Cobre installs massive motors
South Africa-based Marthinusen & Coutts,
a division of ACTOM, recently executed
the sub-assembly of six gearless mill drives
for Minera Panamá’s remotely situated
Cobre Panamá Project in Panama in record
time. As a result, it was able to hand the
machine over to the mechanical teams for
professional assembly well ahead of schedule.
Minera Panamá, the Panamanian
subsidiary of Canadian mining company
First Quantum Minerals, is currently
developing the Cobre Panamá Project,
located in Colón Province. The mine life
has been estimated at more than 30 years
and will produce around 300 000 tonnes per
year (t/y) copper, 100 000 ounces per year
(oz/y) gold, and 2 500 t/y molybdenum.
Of the six ABB gearless mill drives
being installed at Cobre Panamá, four will
power ball mills and the other two will
drive SAG mills. These massive machines
are among the largest ever installed in the
world and were transported in quartered
sections to site for assembly in situ.
The sheer size of the machines, with
inside diameters of 14m, presented
challenges of its own, with each segment
weighing approximately 80t. Work was
done on four different positions on the
machines simultaneously: four o’clock, six
o’clock, nine o’clock, and twelve o’clock.
A major challenge that the team had
to contend with was the adverse weather
conditions. The region receives between
five and seven metres of rain per year, with
ambient temperatures often exceeding 35°C
and humidity levels above 80% daily.
[10] MINING MIRROR MARCH 2018
Australia
RC drilling underway in Kathleen Valley
A reverse circulation (RC) drilling
programme is underway at Liontown
Resources’ Kathleen Valley Lithium
Projects, 60km north of Leinster in the
Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.
The drilling programme will initially
comprise about 3 000m of RC drilling
and will test along strike from thick
zones of high-grade spodumene
mineralisation intersected last year.
The 2017 drill programme was curtailed
due to access issues that have, according to
the company, been resolved. Accordingly,
the programme was unable to test the more
prospective parts of the extensive pegmatite
complex at Kathleen Valley. The current
drilling will also test beneath outcrops where
surface sampling has returned numerous
high-grade lithium and tantalum values.
Mexico
Marlin targets Colinas
TSX-listed Marlin Gold Mining has
announced positive drill results from the
Colinas target area, less than one kilometre
from the Taunus pit within the permitted
mining boundary at the wholly-owned La
Trinidad gold mine in Sinaloa, Mexico.
The drilling at Colinas has focused on an
area that is amenable to opencast mining
along a south-east trending structural
corridor, which is interpreted to be an
extension of the structure that controls
gold mineralisation in the Taunus pit.
According to Akiba Leisman, executive
chair and interim CEO at Marlin Gold,
internal studies applying current mining
costs, along with column-leach testing
results of drill core at Colinas, indicate that
mineralised material from Colinas may be
suitable for processing at the La Trinidad
Mine. “Ideally, material from Colinas would
supplement current production before we
access the southern part of the high-grade
HS Zone in March,” says Leisman.
Mexico
Drilling extends Oposura mineralisation
Additional near-surface, high-grade zinc
and lead drill results have extended the
mineralisation previously reported at Azure
Minerals’ flagship Oposura Project in the
northern Mexican state of Sonora.
According to Tony Rovira, MD at Azure,
the latest results from the Oposura East
Zone continue to be encouraging, with
high-grade zinc and lead mineralisation
being consistently intersected, confirming
the continuity of the near to surface,
massive sulphide mineralised horizon.