Sandfire Resources said that its new Motheo mine in Botswana’s Kalahari Copper Belt has produced first copper concentrate with the introduction of ore to the SAG mill.
“First concentrate production at our newest mine signals the start of our ramp-up towards the initial 3.2-Mtpa capacity, which we expect to achieve on a sustainable basis during the September quarter of FY2024,” said Sandfire Managing Director and CEO Brendan Harris.
The Australian-based miner said equipment commissioning activities are more than 92% complete for the initial processing capacity. T3 open pit mining is proceeding on schedule with more than 270,000 tonnes of ore at ~1.1% Cu (mill feed) and 130,000 t at ~0.7% Cu (lower grade commissioning ore) currently on the ROM Pad.
Sandfire has also received environmental permissions to expand Motheo’s processing capacity to 5.2 million tonnes per annum by early 2024 through an expanded plant and the A4 open pit, Harris added.
Motheo is located about 70 kilometers from the town of Ghanzi. In addition to Motheo, Sandfire operates the DeGrussa copper operations in Western Australia, the MATSA copper operations in Spain, and the Black Butte copper project in the United States.
Source: Sandfire Resources