I've also done some research as well and suspect the best option remains fixing the disused railway (i.e. in effect a road/rail option), but can see barges been used as well, as I have posted in the past on this thread. Anyway I thought these links might help on barging or mapping the course as well - link 1 is general around Manono itself but open up the Luvua River link (second link here) and then have a read of the Lualaba River link (3rd link). The links also have links to barge types etc:
It is going to be very interesting what the transport options they are going to assess in the scoping study are, and what ultimately finds its way to the DFS.
The other thing is I suspect transport options will change over time as other mines in the area come to production (and that is why ultimately I see a rail solution been viable for all the projects around the area in the 'medium to long run'). Chinese involvement too me means they will look at one coherent transport option at some point for the whole area as against looking at a suit of options (where individually you assume you are the only project operating in the area when you are not and that is why over the medium to long run, however defined, I see the solution here becoming road/rail whilst in the interim period there might be a different transport method for project commencement such as road/barge here as an example for AVZ. The transport scoping study will be an interesting read when AVZ completes it I guess.
All IMO
AVZ Price at posting:
9.6¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
