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Nkomati aims for 20,000T/yr nickel
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Fri, 26 May 2006

[miningmx.com] -- AFRICAN Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and LionOre Mining will complete a feasibility study into their joint venture at Nkomati Nickel mine by the end of June next year to quadruple nickel production to 20,000 tonnes in six year’s time.

Nkomati, the only primary nickel mine in South Africa, is currently undertaking an interim expansion project to maintain production at around 5,000 tonnes of nickel a year, ARM Platinum’s geology leader Jonathan Woolfe said at a Geological Society of South Africa convention on nickel.

The interim project at the operation 300km east of Johannesburg will increase ore throughput to 100,000 tonnes per months from 30,000, with 53,000 tonnes coming from two open pits and the remainder from underground, he said.

“We are undertaking a feasibility study to bring production to 20,000 tonnes a year from 2012,” Woolfe said, explaining 400,000 tonnes of ore, mainly from open cast mines, would be processed a year starting from 2010.

ARM and LionOre have previously said nickel production would be raised to 16,500 tonnes/year in the full expansion project at an estimated R2bn. The project will increase the life of mine by 16 years to 2023.
bring cut-off grade down, exploiting larger tonnages
In 2005, Nkomati produced 5,291 tonnes of nickel, 3,260 tonnes of copper, 97 tonnes of cobalt and 40,000 oz of platinum group metals. These by-products have made Nkomati one of the world’s lowest-cost nickel producers.

LionOre operates the Phoenix open cast nickel mine and processing plant in Botswana via its 85% stake in Tati Nickel. Tati produced 2,302 tonnes of nickel in the third quarter of 2005, treating 935,000 tonnes of ore with a grade of 0.36% of nickel.

LionOre’s experience in treating larger volumes of lower grade ores has prompted Nkomati’s management to re-visit their mining plans, said Woolfe. LionOre bought a 50% stake in Nkomati in June 2005.
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“We will be looking at dropping what we previously regarded as a cut-off grade at Nkomati, bringing that grade down and exploiting a much larger tonnage of ore,” he said.

About 90% of its ore will come from three open cast mines.

LionOre’s proprietary Activox process will also play a key role in stepping up Nkomati’s nickel output levels and keeping costs contained, Woolfe said. Activox, which treats sulphide ores, is in use at Tati.