Kingamyambo Musonoi Tailings SARL

completed

The Kolwezi II project is the construction and operations phase of the existing Kolwezi Tailings project. The Project involves the construction of a copper and cobalt processing plant and associated facilities in Katanga province of DRC for the re-treatment of processed oxide tailings from the Kolwezi concentrator. The Kolwezi deposit was first mined in the 1950s. Due to the poor recovery rates obtained at the time, valuable amounts of copper and cobalt were discharged into the tailings dams. The Project company is Kingamyambo Musonoi Tailings SARL (KMT). First Quantum Minerals Ltd, the new sponsor following the take-over of Adastra Minerals, owns 65% of KMT and as such is primarily responsible for constructing the project. IFC contributed with equity funding during the first phase of this Project, approved by IFC Board on May 12, 2005, which involved the preparation of a bankable feasibility study, and has a 7.5% equity stake in KMT. Other shareholders of KMT are the DRC government 5%, Gécamines 12.5%, and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) of South Africa 10%. The KMT concession area (Tailings Exploitation Area, TEP), where re-processing operations will be conducted, is located north of Kolwezi town and north-east of and adjacent to mine workings associated with another concession. The TEP was awarded for an initial period until May 2022 and is automatically renewable. The license area covers 6 100 hectares and extends 13.75 km from north to south and up to 9km from east to west. The Kingamyambo Tailings Dam is a conventional tailings facility which contains 42 million tons of tailings and covers an area of 3 km2 with an average height of 20 m. The Musonoi River tailings deposit contains over 71 million tons of tailings over an area 11 km long and up to 2.5 km wide. The Kingamyambo and Musonoi tailings deposits will be mined simultaneously to achieve the required grade and grain size distribution. The current project initially plans to mine an average of 2.4 million tons of tailings per year. Mining will be through conventional hydraulic mining. The Kingamyambo tailings will be reclaimed utilizing high pressure monitors. Reclamation of the Musonoi tailings will be by two principal techniques. Initially, the tailings will be recovered by dredging, with hydraulic monitors replacing the dredgers once the dredgeable portion has been exhausted. Monitored tailings will gravitate to a pump station for transfer to the treatment plant. As the Musonoi tailings are located in the Musonoi River, a river diversion will be necessary during mining. The process plant will involve the extraction of the residual metals by a leaching process followed by solvent extraction (SX) and electro-winning (EW) to produce cathode copper of 99.9%, and cobalt hydroxide. In time, cobalt metal of 99.8% will be produced. Key process plant infrastructure includes i) an electrode boiler, ii) a sulfur burning acid plant, iii) a limestone milling plant; iv) offices and workshops; v) finished product storage; vi) spares storage; and vii) a parking. Initial plant throughput will be ± 2.4 million tons per annum (tpa), resulting in estimated production of 35 000 tpa copper and 7 000 tpa cobalt hydroxide. Key project infrastructure will include a Tailings Storage Facility (TSF), power lines, a borehole field for process water supply, a processing plant, a dedicated construction camp, a permanent management housing complex, a domestic landfill and new site access roads. The project will employ approximately 1,300 persons during construction and approximately 660 persons during operations. Project life based upon existing tailings reserve and production estimates is likely to be 17-23 years. Construction began in November 2007 and is currently underway under previous approvals provided by the Government of DRC. Earthworks are almost complete and civil works are roughly half finished. Site access roads have been completed, most senior management houses have been built, contractor camps and associated canteens and ablution areas being utilized, the administration offices are largely complete and the plant is half built. A vegetable garden and indigenous nursery have been started, as have various borrow pits, and construction and domestic waste areas have been established. The TSF footprint has been largely cleared and earthworks have begun on the starter wall. It is likely that construction will be completed in early 2010 and that first copper will be poured in the second quarter of 2010.