Contractor appointed as Mowana Mine reopens
Staff Writer | Wednesday March 1, 2017 18:00
The mine has been closed since November 2015, after another mining contractor, Diesel Power Limited, applied for provisional liquidation of the company over a P47 million debt.
In a statement released yesterday, Alecto said the appointment of Giant Transport Holdings demonstrates the company’s commitment to applying a new approach at Mowana, which will enable it to rapidly leverage the existing mineral resource.
“Giant Holdings has been contracted to undertake mining operations at Mowana, for an initial period of six months, with the mining contractor’s site having now been established.
“Strong recruitment drive is underway with an unprecedented response to local recruitment advertisements and to date over 150 positions have been filled,” Alecto chief executive officer, Mark Jones said.
Alecto Minerals recently said it has raised £1 million (P13 million) as the first tranche of funding for reopening of the mine.
The company is in the process of buying the mine for £6.7 million (P87 million) through a reverse takeover of Cradle Investments.
Upon completion of the takeover deal, Alecto will become a 60% shareholder in the mine with the remainder held by former majority shareholder, ZCI Holdings.
According to the London Stock Exchange listed company, to date, two bulldozers, two excavators and five articulated 40-tonne dump trucks (ADT) have been mobilised to the site to augment the company’s own excavator, dozer and front end loader, with further equipment in transit. The company also said the recent higher than usual rainfalls in Botswana over the past few months has necessitated the commencement of a de-watering programme, but that will not impact on the immediate mine plan as the near-term production areas are outside of the flooded areas. Mowana mine has a mineral resource inventory of 683,000 tonnes of copper.
Alecto and its partners say they have re-modelled Mowana Mine to ensure profitable operations even at depressed commodity prices, leading to an internal estimate for the project’s net present value of $245 million at a copper price of US$2.50 per pound.
Alecto has also agreed a 10-year management contract for Mowana with its partners and will receive management fees equal to 1.5% of revenue. The reopening of the mine will come as a boost to the economy as there is currently no operating copper mine in Botswana following the placement of the BCL Group under provisional liquidation last year.
Alecto Minerals plc is an African focused, gold exploration and development company quoted on AIM, with projects in Zambia, Mali and Burkina Faso.