PERTH (miningweekly.om) – Gem miner Magnum Mining & Exploration has initiated operations at its Gravelotte emerald project, in South Africa, to recover a parcel of emeralds allowing for a commercial assessment of pricing.
The company on Thursday said that trial mining of the Cobra pits had been completed, with the material stockpiled for processing. The commissioning of the crushing and wash plant has also been completed, using material from the low-grade and waste dumps.
The Cobra mined material will now be processed through the 2 000 t/m plant, and the product will be stockpiled for secondary processing by the X-ray fluorescene (XRF) sorting.
Magnum noted that the XRF unit was on site and is undergoing calibration prior to the start of secondary processing, with the calibration scheduled for completion in the first week of June.
Based on a base case scenario, some 250 000 ct of emeralds will be produced from the mined material.
Magnum told shareholders that pricing the emerald product from Gravelotte would allow for the financial modelling for a potential commercial mining operation, with the miner planning to start definitive financial modeling in the December quarter.