assets2 Oct 2016 09:05
At Bindura, ASA Nickel “continues its steady performance with AISC (C3) below $5,000/t for nickel in concentrate, ahead of earlier indications.” The restart of the nickel smelter is expected to be completed in the early part of 2017 (“in Q4 of our financial year ending 31st March 2017.”). The addition of the smelter is expected to improve “payability from the current 65% to circa 85% of the LME market spot price.”
• Plans to deepen the shaft at Bindura’s Trojan mine have been held in abeyance as the focus has been on restarting the smelter but are now expected to “come back on to BNC’s radar.” In the longer term, a feasibility study is underway to examine the nickel refinery “and it remains our medium term ambition to re-establish BNC as the only fully integrated nickel producer in Africa.”
• The Klipspringer diamond mine continues to reprocess slime tailings “and progress is being made towards retreating another dam of coarse tailings which are hoped to produce diamonds presently selling at $100 US per carat as opposed to the current $20 US per carat for the slime tailings diamond project.” The company also comments that it is continuing discussions with potential partners from the diamond industry to reopen the old mine.
• The company also mentions a copper exploration joint-venture in the DRC where “one of the largest copper tube manufacturers in the world, Zhejiang Hailiang” is funding “all the appropriate exploration licences.”