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InDABA ReVIeW

“Because the commodity is in structural
deficit and there does not appear to be any
new deposits coming on any time soon,
that [supply] gap in the market will naturally
create offtake and sales opportunities for
us,” he said.
“Unlike some other industrial commodi-
ties which can be difficult to market, we
think rutile – I won’t say it will be easy – will
be a bit more straightforward than some
other industrial commodities in terms of
marketing.”
A geologist with extensive experience in
Africa, Stephens has been focused on Ma-
lawian projects for almost 15 years, work-
Kyanite has proven to be an indicator mineral for rutile
ing closely alongside Sovereign’s country
erable grade of rutile and excellent prod- the lowest-cost graphite producers in manager Andries Kruger for much of that
uct specification.” East Africa. time.
While definition of JORC resources While no further technical work is Malawi is not a known mining jurisdiction
for its key rutile prospects remains the planned for Malingunde, Sovereign still and to date only one commercial operation
main game for Sovereign in 2020, Ste- wants to market the project heavily this – the Kayelekera uranium mine (built by
phens said the company also intends to year in a bid to land a development part- Paladin Energy Ltd, currently on care-and-
kickstart technical studies on potential ner. maintenance and subject to sale to Lotus
mining methods and tailings disposal op- “Many different industries use graphite Resources Ltd) – exists in country.
tions. One potential scenario under con- and traditionally graphite has not been Development of a resources sector is a
sideration is hydro mining of the saprolite bought on long-term contracts, so it’s high priority of the Malawian Government
material using a high-pressure water gun quite difficult to get long-term graphite as it looks to diversify away from an agrar-
which could deliver potential cost advan- sales contracts and therefore difficult to ian economy.
tages over more traditional mining meth- finance these projects through traditional “Recently the Government passed a
ods. means,” Stephens said. new mining act and to us that’s an indica-
Sovereign will have confidence it can “We’re not doing any more technical tion of how serious they are on mining,”
deliver viable economics for a future work, but we are marketing the product Stephens said.
rutile operation given its early achieve- really hard. We’ve got samples out with “I can’t say enough about the support
ments in the space appear to mirror its about 15 different prospective offtake we’ve had from the Government over a
success in graphite. In late 2018, the partners, mainly in the refractory indus- long period of time and that continues to
company released the findings of a PFS try, but also in a couple of other industrial this day. Notwithstanding the Government
which supported production of circa sectors, and we are trying to get MoUs has relatively limited resources, they pro-
52,000 tpa graphite concentrate from and sales agreements with those groups. vide absolutely all the support and encour-
Malingunde over an initial mine life of “Once we have some significant en- agement they can.”
16 years. Capex was estimated at just couragement or certainty around sales, Stephens said his company was also
$US49 million. then we can restart things and potentially benefiting from Lilongwe’s established la-
Average production costs of $US323/t start seeking finance for that project.” bour pool of industrial services and con-
over that period – dropping as low as As for when the time comes to start tractors. Malawian universities are also
$US284/t in the seventh year – posi- marketing its rutile products, Stephens among the most respected in southern
tioned Sovereign as potentially one of is not anticipating the same challenges. Africa.

Sovereign has identified two styles of rutile mineralisation on its ground package: Saprolite-hosted rutile (left) and sand-hosted rutile (right)

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