Page 34 - pd296-August21-mag-web

AFRIcA DoWn UnDeR PReVIeW

Green light for Sandfire in Botswana

Sandfire technical director
Julian Hanna has led
the Motheo story since
its discovery by Mod
Resources in 2016

t’s all systems go for Sandfire Resourc- director of mines, visited the project and into the operation In July, the Sandfire
Ies Ltd after the Botswana Government the Ghanzi region to find out first-hand. announced a resource update including
approved the mining licence for its Moth- I have had a number of Zoom meetings a 34% increase in contained copper for
eo copper project in the country’s north. with him. He is very approachable and A4. The total indicated-inferred resource
Sandfire received its mining licence on very engaged and hugely supportive of stands at 9.8mt @ at 1.4% copper and
July 6, paving the way for project financ- the extractives industry and recognises it 21 g/t silver for 134,000t of contained
ing discussions and early ground works as an important element in the country’s copper and 6.6 moz of contained silver
ahead of construction of the Southern economy. He knows the country has the “We can now begin putting a mining
African country’s second copper mine. skillset to keep the resources industry strategy around A4 and start permitting
The approval also signals a major growing but needs to diversify. While the for it,” Simich said. “We already own the
switch for Sandfire, which has built its diamond industry has been remarkable, farms on both T3 and A4 and so all the
reputation on the high-grade DeGrussa that window doesn’t last forever.” pre-conditions are in place and we are
copper mine in Western Australia. Moth- The licence opens the door for Sand- advanced on the EISA. After that we can
eo will be the company’s first overseas fire to proceed with a project Simich be- put together the mining licence applica-
operation. lieves could deliver more than 50,000 tpa tion for A4.”
Sandfire managing director Karl Simich copper over the next few decades. Simich said adding A4 to the mining
told Paydirt the mining licence approval The company based its final invest- plan was the first step in defining a hub
was welcome, particularly given the de- ment decision on the December 2020 strategy for Motheo with a central pro-
lays which could’ve been incurred due to DFS which outlined a 3.2 mtpa opera- cessing plant treating material from sev-
the global pandemic. tion producing around 30,000 tpa copper eral sources.
“No matter the regulatory environment, over 12.5 years. The 2020 DFS hinted at the strategy,
it is natural to want to move quicker but The DFS was based on the T3 deposit, with consideration of expansion to 5.2
we needed to make sure we were fully but with the company enjoying recent ex- mtpa built into the study.
compliant throughout the process and ploration success on new targets, plan- “Effectively, the engineering behind
knew we had 100% backing from gov- ning is already under way to increase the that study was all based on the expanded
ernment,” Simich said. “The administra- scope of Motheo. operation anyway,” Simich said. “The gy-
tion has been caught up in delays with “We are working very hard to put for- ratory crusher, for instance, has a 6 mtpa
COVID but there were certainly no is- ward an update on the expansion project capacity so, we overengineered every-
sues. in the second half of 2021,” Simich said. thing with 5.2 mtpa in mind.”
“The Minister wanted to understand The expansion will see the incorpo- A resource/reserve upgrade for A4 is
all elements of the project and, with the ration of the higher-grade A4 resource due this quarter, with the numbers ex-

Page 34 aUgUST 2021 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT