African Minerals Limited recently disclosed in a regulation filing that it now prefers to expand its existing rail and port infrastructure in Pepel, rather than develop a new port at Tagrin Point.
This revised expansion is expected to cost about USD 2billion in capital expenditure even though the iron ore miner reckons it will save it about USD 1billion in capital savings.
Mr Keith Calder CEO of African Minerals Limited said that “This will significantly reduce capital costs and de-risk the project’s delivery, whilst at the same time reducing social and environmental impacts.”
Mr Calder said that “We have made good progress with value engineering and optimization in our Tonkolili mine expansion strategy. While our strategy regarding the mine and plant is mostly unchanged, we have now decided to leverage our existing rail and port infrastructure at Pepel to achieve the expanded export tonnage.”
He said that “This approach will provide a significantly better value, capital efficiency and risk proposition for all of our stakeholders.”
The iron ore miner cut its production forecast for the third time this year and said it was in advanced talks to secure working capital facility of USD 250million and increase the size of its existing facility up to USD 150million.
AML also announced it was ramping up production at the Tonkolili ore mine, targeting saprolite hematite concentrate production of up to circa 35 million tonne per annum from 2016.
