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Battery Minerals goes a ThirdWay

hirdWay Africa has been engaged there is an amount there for operational graphite producer, stated it would pull
Tby Battery Minerals Ltd to help find readiness and pre-strip; so $US55 mil- back on production volumes and con-
financing for the 50,000 tpa stage one lion. If someone wrote a cheque for that duct a review of operations and costs at
Montepuez graphite flake concentrate this afternoon, we are off and running,” Balama.
project in Mozambique. Battery Minerals managing director Jer- While Syrah has struggled to hit its
Montepuez is at the starting gate and emy Sinclair said. straps at Balama, Sinclair has previously
ready to go once $US55 million project “ThirdWay Africa is assisting us in the said the operation had at least proved
development capital can be secured. process of securing funding and they the scale of production possible from
“Everything is done, it just needs fund- have done a whole lot of hard work to rip one mine in Mozambique.
ing. The construction cost of Montepu- some costs out of the business to sweat Sinclair also has no doubt that demand
ez is $US39 million and there’s about our cash with the idea being to give our- for graphite is unwavering and through
$US16 million to be added on that to ac- selves maximum runway to get funding.” Montepuez and Balama Central (mining
count for VAT tax, income tax, $US2 mil- ThirdWay Africa, an African funding licence application lodged in June), Bat-
lion in contingency, working capital and specialist, has extensive networks in Eu- tery Minerals is well placed in the sector.
ropean and North American finance “The world needs a lot of graphite go-
circles, while its skills in attracting ing forward,” he said.
support for African projects extends “We are staring down the barrel of un-
to accessing government-provided precedented demand in graphite off the
development capital. back of clean energy and the transition
In what is already a tough market for that is happening globally. We have got
juniors looking for a funding pathway, two world-class graphite projects in Mo-
the ramifications of Syrah Resources zambique, one of which is Montepuez
Ltd’s plight at Balama, Mozambique, which is fully permitted with a path to
were unknown at the time of print. market through port.”
Post-Africa Down Under, Syrah,
which was considered a world leading – Mark Andrews
Jeremy Sinclair

Juwi with the jump start

enewable energy developer and EPC – and has exceeded the fore-
Rcontractor focused on solar, wind and cast generation during the final
energy storage, Juwi Renewable Energies commissioning phase and is
Pty Ltd had good news to deliver at Africa a true testament to the project
Down Under. and delivery team,” Manning
In the lead up to this year’s confer- said.
ence, West Australian copper-gold pro- An initial target of 55-60% of
ducer Sandfire Resources Ltd won the Agnew’s energy requirements
Golden Gecko Award for Environmental is forecast to be met by the
Excellence for its DeGrussa solar project, micro-grid which is comprised
800km north of Perth. of five wind turbines, deliver-
“The judges said that the DeGrussa pro- ing 18MW of power, a 10,000
ject had provided a blueprint for the adop- panel solar farm generating
tion of renewable energy at mine sites 4MW, a 13MW / 4MWh Bat-
around the world. This award is something tery Energy Storage System
that Juwi and Sandfire are very proud of,” (BESS) and a 16MW gas en-
Juwi global head of hybrid Dave Manning gine power station to underpin
said. supply when required.
It was an apt time for Manning to be Global energy group Energy
explaining the successful impact of re- Developments Pty Ltd (EDL)
newable energy in the mining sector, as and Juwi delivered the hybrid
highlighted by the Golden Gecko Award solar solution at Agnew.
and Sandfire’s project exceeding its guar- The Agnew project builds
anteed forecast generation a month ahead upon Juwi’s growing global portfolio, which Dave Manning
of schedule, proving its robust design and includes over 5GW of installed projects to- solar systems and just over a thousand
ongoing performance. talling $10 billion in investments over the wind turbines. We have a global engineer-
Gold Fields Australia Ltd hopes to repli- last 20 years. ing resource with over 850 employees and
cate the achievements at DeGrussa at its Juwi has projects in development across an extensive network of sub contractors,”
Agnew project, also in WA. the world, including in Mali, Ghana, Sen- Manning said.
“That [Agnew] project was commis- egal and Cote d’Ivoire.
sioned this week – on time and on budget “To date, we have installed over 1,700 – Mark Andrews

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT OCTOBeR 2019 Page 71