mining news
6
06.13
Australia’s A-Cap Resources has announced
that recent drilling at its flagship Letlhakane
uranium project in Botswana has defined a
JORC-compliant resource of 107 Mt of coal.
Coal seams occur from surface to a depth
of 84 m and the coal is suitable for domestic
power station feed with beneficiation. A-Cap
believes it has the potential to add significant
value to Letlhakane, with synergies between
mining the coal and uranium ore concurrently
under investigation.
Comments Paul Thomson, Chief Executive
Officer of A-Cap: “The discovery and delin-
eation of a significant coal resource within
the Letlhakane uranium project is another
positive step in advancing this world class
uranium project towards development and
production.
“In spite of one of the worst mining markets
in decades, A-Cap is well funded, has strong
support from its major shareholder and is
continuing to progress the project so that it
is ready to benefit from the forecast upturn
in the uranium price. The company is also
currently in discussions with major nuclear
industry players interested in securing long
term stable supplies of uranium.”
The Letlhakane project is situated approxi-
mately 80 km south of Francistown along the
sealed A1 highway. The deposit is located
within PL45/2004 and is hosted in Lower Ecca
Group sediments of the Karoo Supergroup.
The coal project area, which comprises about
17 km
2
, is located in the north-western parts
of PL45. Until recently, work within PL45 was
focused primarily on uranium exploration,
resulting in A-Cap discovering what it de-
scribes as “one of the world’s largest unde-
veloped uranium resources”.
During the uranium exploration and re-
source definition drilling, numerous intersec-
tions of coal and other carbonaceous litholo-
gies were noted but the resource potential of
this material had not been quantified. As part
Rockwell Diamonds has updated a Pre-
liminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on its
Wouterspan alluvial diamond property that is
located on the opposite side of the Orange
River from the Saxendrift diamond mine. The
PEA was carried out by a team led by Dr
Kurt Petersen, an expert diamond metallur-
gist, and Walter Bold, Rockwell’s Group En-
gineer. There was also significant input from
Paradigm Project Management (PPM), which
Rockwell describes as “a company with a
strong track record in the innovative develop-
ment of new diamond mines.”
The study indicated positive economics,
sufficient to take the project to the detailed
design stage. The economic model yielded
an internal rate of return of between 45 %
and 70 % for a range of scenarios based on
the key inputs. The net present value (NPV)
for the base case is C$91,71 million at a 15 %
discount rate, yielding a project payback pe-
riod of 2,3 years from the start of construction
or approximately 1,3 years from commence-
ment of production. The project is most sen-
sitive to revenue with a 5 % variance in the
total revenue over the 10-year life of mine,
impacting the NPV by 15 %. The operation is
expected to employ 300 people.
The proposed plant has a capacity of
1 200 tonnes per hour (tph) (or 354 000 m
3
per month), a rate that lowers the sensitivity
of diamond production to the nature of the
resource being mined.
The plant design comprises three process-
ing streams: two Bourevestnik Bulk X-ray
systems such as those that have been suc-
cessfully implemented by Rockwell at its
Middle Orange River operations to handle
the coarse and mid-sized gravels; and a third
stream incorporating a dense media separa-
Drilling at Letlhakane defines 107 Mt coal resource
A-Cap’s portfolio of projects in Botswana.
of the ongoing feasibility work for exploitation
of the uranium resource, consideration has
been given to the potential economic value of
this material and whether its extraction and
sale could reduce the mining costs for any
future uranium mining operation.
Geological and Mining Services Australia
(GMSA) was contracted by A-Cap to estimate
a preliminary mineral resource in accordance
with JORC for coal resource. The geological
model and resource statement was complet-
ed by GMSA in April 2013.
Rockwell updates PEA on Wouterspan
tion (DMS) stream to process fine material.
“Completion of this study on Wouterspan
is a critical milestone in Rockwell’s strategy
to unlock the growth potential of its Middle
Orange River projects,” explains James
Campbell, CEO of Rockwell Diamonds. The
property was successfully mined in the past
using pan plants.
“We now have access to more efficient fit-
for-purpose technologies such as the Bulk
X-ray system that we have incorporated into
the new plant design,” he says. “The study’s
results are based on what we are achieving
in other areas of our operations. The project
capital is expected to be some C$42 million,
including a 25 % contingency, with the poten-
tial to come in substantially lower. The team
that conducted the Wouterspan study was in-
strumental in more than halving the eventual
capital budget required to recently bring on
stream a new kimberlite mine in Botswana,
compared to initial estimates.”
