Sovereign confirms viability of low-cost mining at Kasiya graphite project
ASX-listed Sovereign Metals has successfully completed a dry mining trial at the Kasiya rutile and graphite project, in Malawi.
The trial involved a test pit excavation for pilot mining and a land rehabilitation programme.
The test pit covers a 120 m by 110 m area, which has been excavated at a depth of 20 m using four excavators, 20 trucks and a support fleet of bulldozers and a motor grader.
The trial has confirmed that the ore can be efficiently mined using conventional dry mining techniques and a mobile excavator fleet.
Sovereign MD Frank Eagar says completion of the test pit at this scale marks a significant achievement, with valuable mining, hydrology and geotechnical data having been collected to understand the orebody.
The data confirms that no drilling, blasting, crushing, grinding or milling will be required prior to stockpiling material for processing into rutile and graphite products, which Eager says is an indication of potentially lower mining costs and a lower carbon footprint comparable to hard-rock deposits.
The company will undertake a hydraulic mining trial, cyclone separation of ore, backfilling of test pits and soil rehabilitation next.
Sovereign has built a temporary water storage pond sealed with natural clay from excavated material, which minimises the use of conventional plastic lining. The pond is being filled through eight boreholes delivering water to site and is nearing its capacity of six-million litres.
This water will be used for the hydraulic mining stage.
The company aims to restore land soon after mining to conditions that achieve the same or better agriculture yield than existing land uses and crop yields.
Meanwhile, the trial work is also informing an upcoming definitive feasibility study.
Kasiya currently has an inferred resource of 609-million tonnes grading 0.9% rutile and 1.1% graphite, for total contained tonnages of 5.7-million and 6.5-million for the two minerals, respectively.
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