JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miners Rio Tinto and Savannah Resources have entered into a joint venture that will see the two miners develop their Mozambican heavy mineral sands deposits, effective immediately.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Savannah said that it would operate the Mutamba and
Jangamo mineral sands projects and that it would have an initial 10% beneficial interest in
the combined projects, with the potential to increase to a beneficial interest of 51% on the achievement of milestones.
The projects include an exploration target over zones of mineralisation of between 7-billion tonnes and 12-billion tonnes at a grade ranging from 3% to 4.5% total heavy minerals.
The projects are located close to existing road, grid power, water and port infrastructure and
will have access to Rio Tinto’s existing camp and equipment.
“Agreeing an arrangement that enables exploration activities to be conducted on a unified basis across the Mutamba, Dongane and Jangamo projects makes significant commercial sense, effectively combining three areas which are part of the same, continuous mineralisation trend,” said Savannah CEO David Archer.
He added that Savannah was now focused on starting activity on the ground, with a scoping study targeted for completion in the first quarter of 2017.
The company further noted that the start of operations was expected to bring immediate new
jobs and investment to Mozambique and the Inhambane province.