New life for Otjozondu Mine WRITTEN BY AUGETTO GRAIG WEDNESDAY,...

New life for Otjozondu Mine

WRITTEN BY AUGETTO GRAIG
WEDNESDAY, 18 APRIL 2012 22:49

Shaw River Manganese is hard at work revamping its new Otojozondu Mine, some 220km from Windhoek, right next door to the established Purity Manganese operation. Currently employing some 56 people on site, including Ferro Drill personnel involved in further exploration drilling, the company has big plans, according to CEO Ashley Jones. They are busy setting up a new plant and ensuring the operation becomes a twenty-year plus long-term sustainable operation.

“The manganese price has been taking a drop in recent years, but in the last two years it has slowly been coming back up again. We are hoping that by June we might go back to drilling and be in production early next year,” he said. The process, which uses no chemicals, but rather gravity-based sifting to extract the manganese only needs about four months lead time to get up and running, he explained. “Now the price is about N$4.25 and we could break even with just less than N$4. We would need it to be between N$4.50 and N$5.50 per dry metric ton to be profitable,” he explained. Both further exploration and the dismantling and removing of current plant is currently taking place.

“Manganese is a bulk commodity used mostly in hardening steel and making surgical equipment,” he explained. Most of the current demand comes from steel refineries in India and China. To achieve greater value-addition within Namibia, Jones explained that an electric furnace would be needed and that it would need a lot more electricity from Nampower.

However, “one of our biggest concerns is the road. As we start operations we would want to contribute to a solution,” said Jones adding that a study of the road which links the mine to Okahandja has already been commissioned. From Okahandja the manganese is taken by rail to Walvis Bay from where it is exported world-wide. “TransNamib has been very supportive and there are a few port issues, but these are solvable through various options,” he said. Shaw River owns 75% of the mine while Oreport, owned by Grindrod, holds the other 25%.