Mining ZimbabweLatest Mining News, Policy and Industry Updates

TSX-V-listed African Gold Group has published a definitive feasibility study (DFS), as well as an updated mineral resource and reserve estimate, for the Kobada gold project, in Mali.

The DFS envisions a production rate of 100 000 oz/y for the first five years of operation.

Based on current reserves, the project can deliver a total gold output of 728 654 oz over 9.4-year mine life.

The DFS further finds the average total operating cash cost for Kobada to be $704/oz for the life-of-mine, with an all-in-sustaining cost of $782/oz.

The project has an after-tax net present value of $226-million, with an internal rate of return of 41.1% at a $1 530/oz gold price.

The study determines that Kobada requires a capital expenditure of $125-million, as well as a contingency of $11-million, which has a payback time of 3.82 years from the start of production, assuming the sustained gold price of about $1 530/oz.

African Gold intends to purchase power from a standalone 11 MW hybrid solar/thermal power plant, which will be funded by an independent power producer, with power purchased at a competitive kWh rate.

Meanwhile, the company’s mineral reserve estimate has increased to 754 800 oz of proven and probable reserves, which is a 48% increase in ounces compared with the mineral reserve estimate stated in the company’s 2016 feasibility study on the Kobada project.

The company says that further potential remains to significantly increase the resource and reserve along strike and depth at the project.

African Gold will undertake drilling during the second half of the year to further increase the reserve and extend the mine life.

Eventually, construction of the process plant and associated infrastructure is expected to take 19 months.

African Gold has expansive holdings in West Africa’s Birimian Greenstone Belt, including more than 460 km² across Mali and Burkina Faso, with a focus on the development of the Kobada project.

The company earlier this week promoted COO Danny Callow to president and CEO, appointed Scott Eldridge non-executive chairperson, Jan-Erick Back as vice-chairperson and John Begeman as lead independent director.

African Gold has also announced a planned name change to Avion2Gold.

Oil and gas major Shell and NYSE-listed IBM have joined forces to introduce a new business-to-business digital mining services marketplace platform to offer field-tested technology and digital solutions that can help mining companies improve safety, mine planning, operational efficiency and sustainability.

Oren, which was codeveloped by the duo, aims to become a one-stop digital platform for the mining sector to access the best digital solutions and technologies from Shell and IBM, as well as a host of leading and emerging companies.

The online marketplace is expected to accelerate the digitisation of the mining industry, speed up the transformation of mining workflows and build in more operational resiliency in a rapidly changing world, the companies said in a joint briefing on June 17.

It will facilitate technology transfer, innovation and integration from solution providers across the ecosystem, as well as assist miners to efficiently locate solutions at all levels of the organisation and make their existing workflows more intelligent to enable their digital journeys, said IBM iX global managing partner Matt Candy.

“The next push in mining requires a new approach towards industry-wide technology platforms which requires new levels of openness, innovation and collaboration,” said Shell global marketing lubricants VP Carol Chen, noting that miners can benefit from many of the digital solutions used in the energy industry, including, for example, those that help manage operations safely and efficiently in remote locations.

This emerges as current world events disrupt regular business operations, with mining companies seeking solutions to become more agile and resilient and embedding more automated mine solutions such as self-driving haul trucks and remote operations centres in their operations.

A Shell survey found that 80% of the more than 350 mining businesses engaged are wrestling with similar challenges in their operations.

These include difficulty aggregating data to make actionable insights; lack of intelligent workflows owing to siloed organisational working; improving sustainability; and ensuring employees are safe while deploying autonomous technology.

The Oren marketplace platform allows solution developers – both established enterprise companies as well as startups – to get their market innovations to mining clients quickly.

This is key, as many mining companies have limited time and resources to develop in-house tools to mitigate these challenges.

“[The mining companies] are looking to deploy ready-made, proven solutions to improve operations by aggregating data from different sources to create a single view of their operations in order to abstract insights and really drive action and make more informed data-driven decisions,” the duo said.

The platform enables mining operations to develop a roadmap designed to deliver the interconnected mine of the future by creating connected solutions that integrate and leverage data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, automation and analytics.

The Oren team will bring expert support to mining companies to help build their specific digital journey roadmap.

The marketplace allows access to field-proven mining solutions such as cloud-based digital service MachineMax for off-highway vehicles and industrials fleet optimisation; smart lubricant condition monitoring service Shell Remote Sense; and IBM’s Maintenance, Repair and Operations Inventory Optimisation Services which helps manage spare parts inventory optimally for both critical and non-critical spares.

The platform also hosts dedicated environmental management and compliance software that can provide detailed analysis and reporting on pollutant inventories, greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, environmental impact assessment, mine rehabilitation and mine lifecycle assessment.

Further, there will be early adopter access for pioneering technologies that help transform mining operations and a searchable repository of best practice mining use cases to show solutions in action at other mine sites.

Stakeholders in the small-scale mining sector see access to finance and technology as key in taking advantage of growth opportunities at a time Zimbabwe is angling for a US$12 billion in the sector by 2023.

This is in addition to the vast mineral resources Zimbabwe possess that if exploited, can boost the country’s foreign currency earnings.

A survey by the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) titled “The Economy We Want” highlights that opportunities for economic and social transformation from a citizen’s perspective vary with each sector.

Small-scale miners bemoan lack of access to loans, which if made available for procurement of machinery and expansion projects, could be a game-changer for the sector that contributes over half of the gold delivered to Fidelity Printers.

The survey notes that: “6.81 per cent of the respondents from the mining sector saw an opportunity for growth through leveraging of the abundant minerals to stimulate socio-economic growth as a result of Government support to small-scale miners with loan facilities and access to technology.”

Interestingly, as part of the $18 billion economic recovery and stimulus package in the wake of Covid-19, the Government has allocated $1 billion to the mining sector through a credit facility for the gold sector targeting both small and large-scale miners.

Small-scale miners said the facility would bring a huge relief to their operations as they have been hard hit by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) secretary-general, Mr Philemon Mokuele, however, told The Chronicle that there was a need for the Government to ensure the fund was properly administered and benefited the right people.

Access to finance has always been a stumbling block for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) across all the economic sectors despite their enormous contribution to the economy.

In agriculture, small-scale producers have a critical role in the production of both food and non-food crops.

According to the ZIMCODD survey, 8.6 per cent that represented the farming community believe growth opportunities lie in equal allocation and distribution of inputs with emphasis on Government-led programmes such as the Command Agriculture.

“Agricultural inputs must be distributed and allocated proportionally according to the land one productively uses in a non-partisan manner. Additionally, market linkages were another opportunity noted by farmers since most small-scale farmers bemoaned the fact that they struggle to access markets to sell their produce at a fair and competitive price,” reads part of the survey.

Access to fair markets was also cited as critical to ensure farmers sell their produce at an open market which results in competitive prices and therefore improved quality of produce brought to the market by farmers in an effort to fetch higher prices.

Women and youth who represented 14.53 percent and 22.7 percent of the respondents respectively also saw an opportunity of leveraging on their numbers through effective participation and advocacy to influence economic policy formulation and implementation. The role of the media cannot be overlooked in all these processes to disseminate information and shape policy formulation.

Said ZIMCODD: “The media plays a critical role of ensuring that information reaches people as such involving them at all levels across all sectors warrants that they have access to first-hand information which means citizens access credible information from reliable sources at all times.”