More interesting news6 Jan 2020 13:23
https://www.miningweekly.com/print-version/namibian-tantalummine-up-for-sale-2002-03-08
2002 report on our mine. Consider the revised tonnages ;)
As a result of problems with the mining contractor, the Tantalite Valley Mine in south-east Namibia decided, at the end of last year, to temporarily suspend operations, Mining Weekly can report.
The company now wants to find a partner or a buyer whose first interst will be the success of the mine.
Tantalum is mainly used in the production of capacitors, essential components in the electronics industry, so, just as the information technology (IT) mania drove the tantalum price up, so the IT collapse drove it down.
"There was a tantalum price boom over the previous two years – from $40/lb to $50/lb (tantalum is sold by the pound) it peaked at more than $250/lb before falling back to some $40/lb, which is what is currently quoted on the London Metals Exchange," reports company board member and former Mintek CEO Dr Aidan Edwards.
However, Tantalite Valley had secured offtake agreements which were "extremely favourable" and which insulated the company against the fall in the price.
But now the mine has suspended its operations, this offtake agreement has to be reviewed.
"In retrospect, given that it is a small operation in a remote area of Namibia, outsourcing the mining operations to a smaller company might have been more successful," he admits.
The job was undertaken by a major South African company, but its costs proved excessive and targets were not met.
"The intention now is to invite interested parties to buy the mine, or perhaps invest in the existing company," he says.
"It is a very exciting little deposit, at 500 parts per million or just over a pound of tantalum per ton of ore, which makes it rich as tantalum deposits go," reveals Edwards.
The mine was designed to process 6 000 t a month of ore, which would give it a life of ten years.
"It was planned to deliver about 1,5 t a month of tantalum pentoxide concentrate," he adds.
The processing of the ore was and would be in three phases.
First, hand-cobbing – coarse pieces of tantalum being removed from the mined material by hand – followed by jigging and then tabling (that is, concentrating the remaining material with a shaking table).
"The metallurgical plant is practically intact, with only a few additions needed," Edwards affirms.
It is a pegmatite deposit and it is complicated to assess ore reserves in such a deposit, due to the highly erratic, irregular and unpredictable nature of mineralisation in pegmatites.
"But this orebody was systematically drilled, some 20 years ago, by Southern Sphere – that company abandoned the project when the tantalum price suffered one of its periodic collapses," he explains.
"What gave us confidence in this project is that 90% of Southern Sphere's boreholes intersected mineralisation," he elucidates. Interest has already been shown in the mine.
"This deposi
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