BlueRock completes upgrade of Kareevlei plant, resumes commercial mining
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – With trial mining, stockpiling and a new plant now completed, 18 months of hard work have come to fruition as Aim-listed diamond miner BlueRock Diamonds accelerates commercial production at its Kareevlei tenements, in the Northern Cape.
With a new £300 000 fully operational plant in commercial production, processing about 80 t/h of kimberlite, the recovery grades were expected to be in line with – if not higher than – the initial guidelines.
“Now that we have restarted production, we are revenue-generating again and expect to make our first sales since commissioning of the new plant, in the June auction,” said BlueRock CEO Riaan Visser in an update to shareholders on Tuesday.
The company aimed to initially operate one eight-hour shift a day to “fine-tune” the plant, which was upgraded from an initial output of 25 t/h, before implementing two shifts a day.
“While doubling our capacity and revenue potential, a second shift will only require a 30% increase in our workforce,” added BlueRock nonexecutive chairperson Paul Beck.
Meanwhile, the company had prepared for production by stockpiling 50 000 t – a three to four-month supply – of kimberlite from the K1 and K2 pipes to be processed once the upgrade of the plant was completed.
Following the introduction of a second shift at the mine, it would start evaluating options for exploiting the undeveloped K3, K4 or K5 pipes.
During trial mining, 575 ct were recovered and sold on tender through a Johannesburg-based tender house for an average price of $248/ct – 36% higher than anticipated.
“The objectives of the trial mining phase were to verify the reliability of the historic sampling data and to establish the revenue per carat based on current prices. We have concentrated on the K1 and K2 pipes,” Beck noted.
Meanwhile, the group narrowed its losses from £537 000 in 2013 to £430 000 in 2014 – effectively reflecting the cost of the trial mining phase – with BlueRock generating its first turnover of £65 000 in the year to December 2014.
At the end of December, BlueRock held a cash balance of £248 000.
Comments
The
functionality
you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.
If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.
If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.
For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation