JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Opening more mines in Namibia is the aspiration of tin, tantalum and lithium green transition metals producer Andrada Mining.

“We've always been very bullish on Namibia, not only as an investment destination, but also from a geological point of view,” Andrada CEO Anthony Viljoen commented to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Viljoen described Namibia’s Erongo region as being blessed with an abundance of phenomenal geology.

“When we started prospecting there, we were looking at the historic mining operations, and we're very proud that what we've done and what we've contributed to Namibia has started to come to the fore.

“What we're looking at now is expanding our footprint and opening more mines in Namibia and becoming a critical minerals champion for the future.”

The London Aim- and OTCQB-listed Guernsey-headquartered exploration and mining company, which spoke from its office in Illovo, Johannesburg, is now also partnering  on the lithium side of its business with New York-listed Chilean exploration and mining company SQM (Sociedad Química y Minera), which also maintains offices in Johannesburg, also at Illovo.

“SQM is one of the biggest lithium miners globally. We're going to start an intensive campaign on Lithium Ridge to expand that resource and hopefully bring our second project into production with Lithium Ridge.

“Similarly, at Uis, we've done a lot of work in terms of the by-product potential of mining lithium alongside the tin, and hopefully, in the not too distant future, we’ll be able to bring to the market exactly how we're going to do that and integrate the lithium into our circuit. So, very exciting times on the lithium side, now with two projects,” Viljoen enthused.

SQM has committed to spending up to $40-million to advance Lithium Ridge to definitive feasibility study level, and Andrada is in discussion with its existing financiers to expand the current operations at Uis, rather than adopting a greenfield approach.

Mining Weekly: Can you give us some insight into the second tin processing jig plant at Uis?

Viljoen: That was quite an interesting add-on to our whole footprint at Uis. At one stage, Uis was the largest hard-rock opencast tin mine in the world, and outside of the existing pit that we’re mining, there are a number of proximal pits that were mined by Iscor back in the day, and we see a lot of potential to start mining those other pits. Also, there's a lot of tin in the geological system around that region, so we see an opportunity to start a concurrent production line, without disturbing our existing operations at the Uis plant.

What’s the latest when it comes to tantalum?

Tantalum’s also going very well. We've started shipping tantalum on a monthly basis. Now, bearing in mind that the tantalum comes together with the tin concentrate, it gives us by-product potential, and is already adding to the revenue stream, so it's showing the polymetallic nature of this orebody.

DRILLING RESULTS AT UIS

In April, Andrada reported that initial drilling in the previously mined areas of Uis had reaffirmed the scale and quality of pegmatites within a 3 km radius of Uis’ existing processing plant.

Tin, lithium oxide and tantalum intersections were described as highlighting the opportunity to augment major tin production with the added advantage of lithium and tantalum as value-enhancing co-products.

This followed Andrada reporting in February that it had secured a $2.5-million loan to build the second 100 t/h tin plant incorporating a three-stage primary crushing and screening circuit, a jigging section and shaking tables to process a range of tin ore grades across Erongo.

LITHIUM RIDGE PEGMATITE

At Lithium Ridge, Andrada has reported continuous lithium, tin and tantalum mineralisation along a 6 km strike, with the SQM partnership providing the opportunity to accelerate exploration initiatives.

The licence covers about 3 300 ha within the NaiNais –Kohero pegmatite belt in which spodumene is considered the dominant lithium mineral present.