Alecto prepares for first blast at Mowana project

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Alecto Minerals is “moving at speed” towards delivering continuous production and first sales from the Mowana copper project, in Botswana, with the first blast expected to take place within days.

With appointed drill and blast contractor Capital Drilling mobilising its equipment to site, an interim local contractor will undertake the first production blast by the end of this month.

“It is significant that we have been able to sign up a company of Capital Drilling’s profile to provide future drill and blast services, and with Giant already on site, our stockpile is increasing,” said Alecto CEO Mark Jones.

The Africa-focused gold and copper exploration and development company’s mining contractor Giant Transport, which has been appointed for an initial six-month period, has started operations.

The conventional crushing and screening circuit has been successfully operating for two weeks, stockpiling crushed ore, Alecto highlighted in an update to shareholders on Wednesday.

“Most importantly, we have switched the plant back on as part of a test phase and this has been a great success, producing saleable copper concentrate,” he added.

After initial commissioning of the process plant, test production kicked off, with the saleable concentrate up to 28% copper forming part of the first tranche of product to be delivered to Fujax Minerals and Energy under a five-year copper offtake contract.

“The company believes early test production strengthens the value proposition of Mowana and, accordingly, the estimated timetable for readmission has been pushed back, anticipated to complete by the end of May 2017, to ensure that the value of this production is accounted for and represented on readmission,” Jones concluded.

Alecto has also appointed Vincent Conran as the project’s GM.