JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Illegal mining continues to impact the quality of the tanzanite produced by Richland Resources; however, actions by the gemstone producer and developer and the Tanzanian government to expel illegal miners from the southern part of the Block C Merelani mine are gaining traction.
A government-led and -supported operation that started on September 8 to eject illegal miners from the southern part of Block C continued to date.
This followed Richland’s June lambasting of the government for its inaction, as illegal underground mining significantly increased, with a Richland employee shot dead by armed attackers assumed to be illegal miners that were entering underground areas from neighbouring blocks.
This was followed by an armed robbery in July when night-shift production was being transported from the mineshaft to the secured sorting facility.
No employees were injured during the heist that resulted in the theft of about 15 kg of unsorted tanzanite-bearing material valued at less than $75 000.
While significant progress had been made by the government agencies for the re-entry of Richland's wholly-owned subsidiary Tanzanite One Mining (TML) to parts of Block C, with infrastructure repair and selective mining starting in some sections of CT shaft, third-quarter output remained low owing to the continuing lack of available high-quality production areas accessible for mining.
TML produced 622 551 ct of tanzanite in the third quarter of the year, a drop from the 810 347 ct achieved in the corresponding quarter last year.