Sedgman builds concentrator for BOSETO

| Monday November 29, 2010 00:00

The company reports that the Boseto project is taking its order book to a new record level of about A$800-million.

The engineering, procurement and construction contract was awarded in May, and initially required front-end engineering design and related metallurgical testing for the copper flotation plant, followed by detailed design, procurement and construction to be completed by late 2011.

The company has received a notice to proceed that confirms Sedgman's expanded scope of works, which is expected to take the contract price of the Boseto project to more than A$90-million.

Discovery reports that the Boseto mine, once commissioned, will be the first Botswana mine in the Kalahari Copperbelt, with the company already embarking on additional exploration to locate similar-sized deposits in Botswana.

The deposit has current ore reserves of 24,1-million tons, grading 1,3% copper and 16,7% silver. The first concentrate production is scheduled for the first half of 2012.

'While our metals engineering business unit has experienced increased study activity over recent months, the movement of the Boseto project into the execution phase supports our positive growth outlook for the fiscal year for 2011 and beyond,' Sedgman adds.

Meanwhile, the company aims to expand its study capability with a view to increasing its engineering capabilities in South Africa and growing its workload.

'We are busy with a number of studies to secure work in Africa.

Sedgman South Africa is active in the coal industry with one study based at an operation owned by miner Delta Mining, in Mpumalanga, and another at Brazilian mining giant Vale's Moatize expansion, in the Tete province of Mozambique.

Moatize is a huge deposit, which is going to be the world's next big coal basin,' says Schenk.

In 2009, Sedgman completed the detailed design of a 4 000-t/h process plant at Moatize. This is one of the world's largest single-building, four-module coal preparation plants (CPPs).

The CPP can process up to 26-million tons a year of raw coal and increases the recovery of coking coal from separate mining areas in Tete.

The CPP includes four 1 000-t/h modules, each containing two stages of dense-media cyclones, spirals and microcell flotation cells - proven equipment that is simple to operate and maintain to cater for the remote location.

The modules also contain a centralised control room, with an electrical switchroom adjacent to the CPP.-(Miningweekly)