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ARM to dust off 60 000t/year copper mine
David McKay
Posted: Wed, 20 Jul 2005
[miningmx.com] -- AFRICAN Rainbow Minerals (ARM) is to dust off Konkola North, a copper mine in the Zambian Copperbelt, as part of plans to establish a non-South African, African exploration firm.
Rick Menell, a nonexecutive director of ARM responsible for the group’s exploration ventures, declined to comment on speculation that a new exploration company will be formed and listed in North America. But it’s clearly likely. The exploration company needs R150m to fund a well-stocked pre-production pipeline and Menell says SA isn’t the place to raise the capital. “In any event, ARM has other priorities.”
Konkola North – ditched by former owner Avmin, which Menell headed until 1993 – would be a flagship asset of ARM. Menell hopes a 12- to 18-month feasibility study will prove that a 30 000t to 60 000t/year mine, including the downstream processing options, would be economic. “The mine
was marginal at a copper price of US$0,70/lb, but at $1/lb it looks more interesting.”
Menell is also overseeing a number of other exploration ventures once housed in Avmin and which have 10 years of prospecting data behind them. One is Mwambashi Copper, also in Zambia, which the company hopes will be quicker to market with potential for 8 000t to 10 000t/year of copper. The venture’s owned with Korea Zinc and could be “opened up in the medium term” for cash flow purposes.
ARM was also in the final stages of establishing an exploration joint venture with Gecamines (the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining public corporation) called Kalumines. It will explore the potential for mining a large high-grade copper/cobalt resource 25km from Lubumbashi.
The other major asset in ARM is Otjikoto, a gold mine in Namibia that Avmin found while looking for zinc during 1992. “The area has only been partially drilled and we’re looking for other anomalies,” Menell says.
ARM is excited about the project and even expects to spend $10m in an effort to build the resource. But it’s not known whether it will be retained in the company.
Says Menell: “We’re not sure whether gold and copper fit together in one enterprise, as they’re valued differently. These assets lend themselves to be housed in an exploration company. It could be floated off.”
Financial advisers have been retained to examine the options.
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