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Force mixes with the best

dmittedly, Jason Brewer barely followed of all lead and silver production from the trenching work and drill pad preparation at
Athe lead-silver market prior to the mine. Tshimpala, 30 minutes west of Lilongwe.
Tshimpala opportunity in Malawi prevailed Post Africa Down Under, a phased ap- Force also has a short-list of contractors
for Force Commodities Ltd. proach to civil engineering and construc- it is negotiating with to carry out mining
“Silver was $US15/oz when we acquired tion services had started with Malawian and beneficiation work, as open pit mine
the project, it is now $US19/oz,” Brewer group Shire Construction Ltd awarded the development studies progress.
said at Africa Down Under. contract for works, including the establish- The company aims to have Tshimpala
As quick as the silver price alone has ap- ment of site offices and camp facilities, in- coming online at a time of positivity in the
preciated, Brewer has come up to speed frastructure upgrades and improvements base metals market and increasing lead
with the market dynamics and managed to to access bridges and roads, exploration and silver prices.
sign-off a number of key milestones since Resource drilling was under way at the
activities started at Tshimpala in June. time of print, with a programme comprising
Swiss-based global trader Transamine 150 RC holes for 2,500m.
Trading SA wasted no time in securing As a spur before drilling started, a recent
off-take on future production from Force’s XRF analysis of grab samples returned ex-
51% interest in Tshimpala, while one of ceptionally high-grade silver of 2,411 g/t at
the world’s top 500 companies, African Tshimpala.
logistics experts – Bolloré Transport and Previous bulk sampling assays have re-
Logistics – will export high-grade lead- turned results in the ilk of 60% lead and
silver concentrate from the port of Beira, 735 g/t silver with up to plus 80% lead in
Mozambique, to select ports in Asia. some chemical assay results.
As manager and operator for Tshimpala,
Force will organise all funding for mining – Mark Andrews
operations and the marketing and sale
Jason Brewer

Comet story four

hapter one of the Titan nickel balls sto- of Abuja, outcrops at surface and appears Assuming a $US6/lb nickel price, $US200
Cry was unveiled at Africa Down Under as native nickel metal ranging in size up to million in annual revenue was estimated at
in 2016. Comet Minerals Ltd director Hugh 0.5cm in diameter, comprising 95% nickel C3 costs of $US3/lb.
Morgan AC and team, including Stephen disseminated in host rock grading 1.5-3%. Perth-based WildIp has granted Comet
Davies and consultant geologist Profes- Last year, Comet revealed back-of- a royalty free licence to use its patented
sor Louisa Lawrance, have returned every envelope details about what stage one metal extraction process potentially appli-
year since to tell delegates more about economics at Titan would look like at a cable to the Titan metallurgy, with a scop-
what is an extraordinary nickel discovery throughput rate of 1 mtpa. ing study now under way to determine the
in Nigeria. Comet guided potential production of viability of building a pilot plant to test the
“We have been engaged in that [project] 15,000 tpa @ 1.5% nickel over 10 years. new processing method.
now for seven years and it has been com-
plicated primarily because it is unique in
every aspect; in terms of geological back-
ground, extraction processes and we’re
into the fourth chapter now,” Morgan said.
“The first [chapter] was to really an-
nounce the discovery, something that I
think was regarded with a high degree
of incredulity that it existed and that was
our reaction when we first got engaged
ourselves. The second was to actually
produce, with the help of Prof Louisa Law-
rance, a geological model to explain why
this was, how it came. Last year, when we
were here, it was to actually point out the fi-
nancial implications of this very significant
discovery. This year, our fourth year, is to
really concentrate on metallurgical issues
that have been addressed in this time to
ensure that there is significant capacity to
exploit this extraordinary deposit.”
The style of nickel balls Comet has dis-
covered at the Titan project, 200km east Hugh Morgan

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT OCTOBeR 2019 Page 77