PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian junior Magnum Mining has started trial mining and processing at its Gravelotte emerald project near the namesake town of Limpopo, South Africa.
The 10 000 t trial mining and processing exercise will be conducted in two phases, with about 2 000 t sourced from the dumps and a further 8 000 t sourced from the Cobra and Discovery pits.
Magnum said on Monday that the trial mining was aimed at confirming historical emerald grades within the dumps and the respective openpits, as well as on optimising the mining and processing techniques to be used in the potential commercial operation.
Furthermore, the trial mining operation would also be used to determine the likely value of the Gravelotte emeralds in the open market place, using the emeralds recovered during the trial programme.
Based on the average recovered grades from the hard rock and waste dump processing over its 70-year production history, the trial mining exercise at Gravelotte is expected to recover more than 250 000 ct of emeralds.