Our lead feature this month covers Gem Diamonds' new Ghaghoo diamond mine in Botswana, which was officially opened on 5 September by Botswana's President, Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama. The mine, located in the extremely remote Central Kalahari Game Reserve, is notable for being Botswana's first underground diamond mine. To access the orebody, a tunnel shield - similar to those used in the construction of portions of London's tube system - was used to develop the access decline through the 80 m of Kalahari sand that lie over the kimberlite orebody.
Still in Botswana, we also look at some recent developments at the country's only operating gold mine, Mupane near Francistown. Earlier this year the mine transitioned from open-pit to underground mining while, more recently, it has commissioned a new screening plant which will enable it to treat low grade stockpiled ore. The process is expected to produce an additional 266 858 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 1,6 g/t to feed the processing plant.
We also cover two Zambian projects in this issue - the Trident copper-nickel project, located approximately 150 km west of the town of Solwezi in the far north-west of the country, and the Lubambe copper mine to the north of Chingola on the Copperbelt.
Owned by First Quantum Minerals (FQM), Trident is really two separate projects, the Sentinel copper mine and the much smaller Enterprise nickel mine. Sentinel, which will rival FQM's existing Kansanshi copper mine in size (it will produce up to 300 000 t/a of copper) was 94 % complete by the end of the second quarter of this year and continuous operation of the first milling train is expected by Q4 2014. The capex for the project is US$1,9 billion.
Lubambe, for its part, is jointly owned by ARM, Vale and ZCCM-IH, and is Zambia's latest underground copper mine. Still in the ramp-up phase, it is expected to produce 45 000 t/a of contained copper at steady state by 2015. Murray & Roberts Cementation has had a close involvement in the development of the mine and reports that its second contract at Lubambe - for trackless high-speed development - has been extended for a further two year period.
