ON SITE
The hustle and bustle of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. Countries in East Africa are growing at a significant pace and
present many opportunities for suppliers of yellow metal.
where the focus should be. It was thus
encouraging to have a speaker from
elsewhere in Africa delivering his speech
after Mantashe’s address. President Julius
Bio from Sierra Leone invited foreign
companies to invest in Sierra Leone,
which boasts great deposits of diamonds,
bauxite, rutile, iron ore, gold, and even
traces of platinum.
A first of its kind geophysical survey
was recently conducted in Sierra Leone
and could change the fortunes in a country
first ravaged by civil war and then by the
Ebola virus.
The survey was flown by South African
company Xcalibur Airborne Geophysics,
with supervision and quality control
provided by UK-based Reid Geophysics,
and survey design by Geofocus, another
South African outfit.
Tim Archer, director of Reid
Geophysics, told Plant Equipment & Hire
in an exclusive interview, that the survey
included a combination of technically
attractive features, in particular tight
www.equipmentandhire.co.za
line spacing that created excellent data
resolution.
Archer said the results of these surveys
are extremely positive, but that a long road
is still ahead for the mining industry to find
its feet again in a country rich in diamonds,
bauxite and rutile.
According to Karl Smithson, CEO of
Sierra Diamonds, and a veteran explorer
in Sierra Leone, this is a game changer
for the country. Sierra Diamonds’ Tongo
mines are in the final stages of completing
its underground decline and will be
operational early in March 2020.
Meanwhile, Jan Joubert, CEO of Meya
Mining, another stalwart in the Sierra
Leone mining industry, says a lot of new
projects will now be fast tracked, because
of the more detailed information available.
Joubert believes that Sierra Leone
will become one of the top diamond
producers in the world. Smithson says
Tongo, which has a mine life of about
18 years, is only utilising three of the 11
Kimberlite pipes present on its mining
The one key
observation at
Indaba was the
lacklustre interest
from investors
in South African
affairs, with other
African countries
stealing the show.”
APRIL 2020
13