The majority of the planned plant upgrades at Aim-listed Edenville Energy’s flagship Rukwa coal project, in Tanzania, have been completed, the company reported on Thursday.

One of the key upgrades was further modifications to the pre-screen, which had been installed in January 2019.

The initial introduction of the pre-screen, which removes hard to process material such as fine coal, had already resulted in a lower use of consumables in the main plant, such as magnetite.

Going forward, Edenville would also ensure the more efficient sorting of material prior to it entering the main wash plant circuit, which had the potential to provide more coal for washing and a cleaner recovery as it travelled through the plant.

With this in mind, Edenville would look to process sections of the existing fines stockpiles, thereby recovering a significant amount of coal which can be washed.

Additionally, the company introduced a coal sizer at the start of the pre-screen to deal with any oversize material prior to it reaching the screen.

The sizer is currently being assembled on site and is expected to be operational in July.

A comprehensive spares package for the plant has also been put in place, with additional purchases made. These parts are now either on site or due for delivery in the near term, which Edenville said should help to prevent any significant downtime in the future in the event of machine failure.

Moreover, road access to the new northern mining area was completed.

During June, the company plans to upgrade the road in certain areas to provide an adequate haul route from the pit to the plant.

As a result, mining was expected to start in the Northern Area in the coming weeks.

The first coal deliveries to the plant from the Northern Area are scheduled for July.

Edenville will, in the meantime, continue to mine the currently available pit area and process the existing stockpile to produce washed coal.

CEO Rufus Short said the upgrades had either been completed ahead of schedule or remain on track for completion next month.

"We consider Edenville is on track to become cashflow positive within the next ten months, targeting an initial 6 000 t/m, which we consider to be a breakeven level, increasing to [more than] 10 000 t/m thereafter,” he said.