[miningmx.com] — KUMBA Iron Ore has said it would once again look at West Africa for expansion, aiming to source up to 20 million tonnes (mt) of ore from the region by 2020.
Delivering the group’s interim results to end-June on Thursday, CEO Chris Griffith said it was still early days with no decisions taken on specific projects, with the group open to evaluate any possibility in the six iron ore producing countries of the region.
“The analogy to use is that we’re on a fishing expedition,’ said Griffith. “We’re throwing in our line to see what we catch. If we don’t like what we see we’ll throw it back; if it’s too big for us we may ask someone else to help us with it.’
Obvious potential partners could be Kumba’s majority shareholder Anglo American, which has iron ore operations in South America, or Exxaro Resources, which earlier this year made a failed bid for Australian iron ore producer Territory. Griffith is also an Exxaro board member.
The venture into West Africa would be Kumba’s first since its unsuccessful attempt to acquire an 80% interest in Senegal’s Faleme iron ore project, in partnership with the Senegalese state-owned mining development company, Miferso, ended in arbitration proceedings in 2007. The parties reached a settlement in August last year.
Griffith said all mining in the area would be over and above the 70mt annual South African production target for 2019, up from 2010’s 43.3mt.
“You have the biggest chance to be successful in your own backyard,’ said Griffith. “But longer term you have to be looking at replacement ore; we’re looking at this as an opportunity to get to know the area.’
The first of several development projects to come on line in the near future would be the commissioning of Kolomela mine, which the group said has progressed to 94% of completion. The mine is expected to produce at its design capacity of 9 mt by 2013, and would add an estimated 4mt to 5mt during its ramp-up phase in 2012.
In preparation, Kumba said waste mined at Kolomela now totalled 37.3mt, with the life of mine extended by 8 years to 28 years as reserves increased.
Apart from Kolomela, Kumba saw another 15mt added to production from what it labelled “Northern Cape Projects’ after 2016. Griffith said these would probably be extensions to Kolomela and Sishen, although Kumba also had stand-alone properties in the area which could be developed.
Thabazimbi’s closure, due 2016, would take out 2.5mt from the annual production chain, to be substituted by 5mt from new development projects in Limpopo, which included Phoenix.
