Mining and processing

The Mabay deposit is located in the northwestern part of the Republic of Burundi in the province of Cibitoke. The extraction of gold-bearing glandular quartzites and their enclosing rocks is planned to be extracted in an open manner. Ores of different value contain gold, copper, silver and other components.

In total, within the Mabay field, at the first completed stage of geological exploration, more than 20 ore bodies were identified, ore bodies are represented as lenses. The length of ore bodies varies from 50 to 900 m, capacity from 3.5 m to several dozen points.

The main criterion determining the development strategy of the project is the type of deposits typical for East Africa, which is developed on the area of the Mabai concession, the similarity of ore-bearing rocks, the type of occurrence and morphology of the deposits with similar with deposits of DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Mozambique, Zimbabwe where they are successfully developed..

Principle of work: development of ore bodies is carried out by stationary complexes of optimum productivity. The complex includes mining and processing equipment.

A project has already been made for the development of open-pit mining at sites ready for operation, and a plan for the development of mining operations, where the main parameters of the quarry was calculated, and as well  technological solutions for development are presented, etc.

The preparation of the field for exploitation in the license area of Mabai will begin in the fourth quarter of 2017. Ie. will start: the preparation of the surface of the deposit, the diversion of rivers and streams into the new channels, relocation of roads, power and lighting lines, structures and etc. And also carrying out special open-pit workings, removing a certain volume of rock from the quarry and building transport communications that provide access to working horizons. After all that  pre-stripping, the quarry will be put into operation and begin to function as a self-supporting production unit.

Production will be divided in two stages:

1)alluvial and top oxide zone deposits

2)primary gold, copper and silver phases

First phase of production scheduled in the beginning of 2018 with Production rate at completion expected at 24,000 ounces of gold per year

The second stage scheduled at 2019-2020. Production rate at completion of second stage expected at 100,000 ounces of gold plus additional 80,000-100,000 ounces of silver and 4,000-5,000 tons of copper per year.

The work on the design of the benification plant is already completed. This works made company that specializes  on metallurgical mining design and experiment research.

Tanganyika Gold S.A.’s procecing plant will be located near quarries, and be in a class by itself the only industrial-production complex for the production of gold, not only in the province of cibitoki, but also in the country. The extracted ore will be processed at an enrichment factory with the receipt of commodity ingots.

The capacities of the first-phase processing plant of gold-bearing ore is 360,000 tons per year. The applied technology is gravity enrichment with the subsequent leaching, which allows to reach the metal extraction index over 96%, being the best practice in the mining and metallurgical industry.

Technological flow chart of processing plant

Production at the plant will begin in early 2018, and an increase in production capacity will be carried out between 2019-2020 after the launch of the second phase of production.