JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Production from iron-ore developer African Minerals’ Tonkolili operation, in Sierra Leone, was expected to stabilise at 20-million tons a year during 2014, with cash costs falling to around $30/t, CEO Bernie Pryor said on Monday.
"The Tonkolili project finalised its construction in May 2013 and has been in the process of commissioning and ramping up over the last eight months. We are pleased with how that ramp-up has progressed and we look forward to achieving the sustainable 20-million-tons-a-year run rate during 2014,” he said.
Pryor added that the project had met its 2013 export tonnage guidance, with 12.1-million tons having been shipped, up from only 4.1-million tons in 2012.
Similarly, sales for the fourth quarter of the 2013 financial year amounted to 3.8-million tons, up from 2.8-million tons sold during the third quarter.
Pryor said African Minerals' success in the fourth quarter formed the foundation of its next expansion.
The project’s Phase 2 expansion was expected to start at the end of this year, with the first Phase 2 concentrator, with up to ten-million tons of final product processing capability, expected to be commissioned in 2016.
“[This would] allow us to extend the life of our direct shipping ore operations,” Pryor said.
African Minerals further stated that its optimisation review of the infrastructure capacity and expansion options of the Pepel port, as well as its associated rail infrastructure, was in the process of being completed, adding that it believed that a medium-term integrated export-capability increase could be achieved in parallel with the mine’s Phase 2 expansion.
“The increase in infrastructure capacity, together with the additional processing capability of the new nine-million-ton-a-year A32 1G plant, which will be delivered, constructed, commissioned and ramped up during the first half of 2014, will allow the Tonkolili project to initially increase exports at low capital cost,” the company said.
Meanwhile, African Minerals executive chairperson Frank Timis also pointed out that its investment transaction with China-based import and export enterprise Tianjin Materials & Equipment Group Corporation (Tewoo) continued to progress, with the company to be welcomed as a partner in the Tonkolili project and a shareholder in African Minerals during the course of this year.