Bosai Minerals Group Co. will begin preparatory works at its recently acquired Matthews Ridge Manganese project during the second half of 2017.
Bosai -the Chinese company involved in bauxite operations in Linden penned an agreement with Reunion Gold Corporation to acquire the latter’s rights in the Matthews Ridge Manganese Project to months ago.
On Wednesday, January 25, 2017, Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman gave his consent to the agreement paving way for the manganese mining to recommence after several decades.
According to Minister Trotman, Bosai expects that employment numbers can reach as high as 1,200 during the peak of construction and then stabilise at 300 to 400 during normal operations.
Once in production, the company intends to ship 350,000 tonnes of manganese per year.
A construction period of approximately two years is envisaged, with work encompassing: Construction of Wharf facility at Port Kaituma, Construction and upgrading of roads from Port Kaituma wharf to Matthews Ridge and Pipiani, Mine development work including stripping and pit work for ore extraction,
Construction of tailings management and water supply facilities and milling plant for treatment of manganese ores to concentrate and Building of additional infrastructure at the mine to support the operation.
On November 4, 2016, Reunion Gold Corporation announced that it had entered a Definitive Agreement to sell its Matthews Ridge Manganese Project to Bosai Minerals Group. The agreement stipulates that Reunion will transfer to Bosai the four prospecting licences which make up the Matthews Ridge project to Bosai.
Reunion’s exploration programme on acquiring the licenses in 2010 was designed to identify and measure the manganese resources in the four Prospecting Licenses. The exploration programme confirmed the occurrence of manganese mineralization. Since then, the company has spent over US$50 million to define what it described as a world-class manganese deposit in Matthews Ridge. There is an initial 10 million tonnes of concentrate with the potential to double with the addition of the satellite site of Pipiani.
Further, Reunion has conducted environmental and social baseline studies in anticipation of a complete project Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) in conformity with international and local standards.
Bosai will mine using conventional open pit methods with minimum blasting and the mine will have a life of 15 to 35 years; depending on the rate of extraction.
