Tantalite Valley seeks to wrap up Namibian ore mine
March 19, 2002
By Allan Seccombe
Johannesburg - Tantalite Valley Mining is seeking a buyer or majority partner to complete the development of a rich ore deposit in Namibia.
Tantalum, a downstream product of tantalite, is a key input in cellphones and other portable electronic devices.
"The works have been suspended temporarily, but we hope the mine will be reopened by the end of the year," the managing director, Sabine Severin, said yesterday, adding that the firm had experienced problems with a contractor.
"We are selling the majority of the project or the mine. The project has the potential to start up very quickly. The processing plant was in the stages of final commissioning in December last year."
Infrastructure, the processing plant, housing and employee training have been largely completed at the site, which is about 100km south of Karasburg in southeastern Namibia.
An investor could count on spending about N$5 million (the same amount in rands) to bring the project to operation in about three months, Severin said.
Tantalite Valley has spent about N$15 million since the start of last year on the project.
The company is owned by a consortium of Swiss investors.
Tantalite Valley signed an offtake agreement for its full production with a Japanese company called Showa Cabot Supermetals, owned by Cabot Corporation.
Showa Cabot supplies tantalum powders and metal products to the electronics, aerospace and chemical processing industries.
However, the agreement was up for review, Severin said.
"We signed an offtake agreement, but we ran into trouble with our mining contractor and on August 1 we decided to part ways," she said.
Tantalite Valley had planned to produce at costs below $66 a kilogram, but once on site it became evident that target could not be met.
The spot price of tantalite has been very volatile, shooting up from $100 a kilogram early in 2000 to $770, before settling back to below $100 at present.
The mine tunnels into the side of a mountain, while there is potential for open-cast mining.
"There has been a surprising amount of interest in our project even though the price of tantalite is down, demand is down and tantalite industry depressed," Severin said. The company was speaking to a dozen players and could speak to another 15.
Although the firm had not completed its exploration, the size of the reserve determined so far was between half a million and a million tons, with the potential for it to be a lot bigger.
The mine was planned to produce 1.5 tons to 1.8 tons a month of tantalum pentoxide concentrate for a market that consumes 2 000 tons to 3 000 tons of tantalum pentoxide a year. - Reuters
|
|
