Work has begun on the building of an opencast fluorspar mine and concentrator at Rust de Winter, 80 km north-east of Pretoria, Nokeng Fluorspar Mine announced last week.

The wholly owned subsidiary of SepFluor said that the R1.7-billion finance for the 21-month project had been raised through a mixture of debt and shareholder equity.

Key equity participants include:
• the African Minerals Exploration and Development Fund II SICAR (AMED II), a private-equity fund managed by Explora (Luxembourg) and founded by South African mining entrepreneurs David Twist and Rudolph de Bruin, with Italian financier Carlo Baravalle;
• Ixofluor, backed by the Lelau Mohuba Trust and headed by Sephaku Holdings founder and CEO Dr Lelau Mohuba;
• Traxys Projects LP, the projects division of commodities trader Traxys Europe SA; and
• funds managed by two of AMED II’s investors, Kuramo Capital and Tribus Capital.

The finance component of the project was arranged by Fieldstone Africa and comprises a consortium of primary lenders:
• Nedbank Limited as lender and facility agent;
• Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij Voor Ontwikkelingslanden NV; and
• Deutsche Investitions Und Entwicklungsgesellschaft.
In addition, Concentrate Capital Partners, an investment fund associated with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor DRA, has provided a small tranche of mezzanine debt.

The Department of Trade and Industry has approved an infrastructure grant of R21-million under the critical infrastructure programme, primarily as a contribution towards power supply and roadworks.

A joint venture comprising DRA Projects and Group 5 Construction has been awarded the EPC contract for the mine, which includes the concentrator, access roads and the ‘self-build’ portion of a power supply agreement concluded with Eskom. This involves the construction of a new 14 km, 132 kV overhead power line. Water supply to the site will come from a newly established wellfield.
Construction is expected to be concluded within a 21-month period, with commissioning beginning in November 2018 and first production in January or February 2019.

At an average run-of-mine rate of 630 000 t/y, the mine will produce 180 000 t/y of acid-grade fluorspar and 30 000 t/y of metallurgical- grade fluorspar.

With a total compliant reserve of 12.18-million tonnes, Nokeng has an estimated life-of-mine of 19 years.

More than 300 fixed-term jobs will be created in the construction phase and 200 permanent jobs once the mine is in operation.

A significant portion of the early production has been presold to several international fluorspar users.

A long-term agreement has been concluded with Traxys, which has a significant presence in South Africa, for the marketing and distribution of Nokeng’s production.