The Irish firm, Kenmare Resources, has announced the discovery of a new deposit with 140 million tonnes of various heavy minerals close to its the Moma heavy minerals project in northern Mozambique’s Nampula province.
Kenmare’s Mozambique director to Gareth Clinston told APA on Thursday that the deposit is located 10km from Moma, which has been mined since 2007 and has 21 million tonnes of heavy mineral concentrates, including ilmenite, zircon and rutilium, Clinston told the Correio da Manhã newspaper.
“We have a new deposit with over 140 million tons of various heavy minerals near our major project site in Moma”, he said
Kenmare Resources has invested $400 million in the project and in the first quarter of 2009 exported products to the value of $4.5 million or 8.9 percent more than in the same period of 2008.
However, Clinston said that production had fallen short of projections due to “the fact that inappropriate equipment was installed in the factory, as well as the effects of Cyclone Jókwe that passed through the mining area in March 2008, causing significant damage to production.”
He said production levels established throughout the second half of 2009 — the export of 800,000 tonnes of ilmenite, 56,000 tonnes of zircon and 21,000 tonnes of rutilium — would be met.
Source African Press Agency
