Kombat takes a pause

Kombat copper mine was resurrected by Trigon Metals early this year but minig at its open pit has now been suspended due to falling copper prices and the quality of the ore mined. Beginning August the local manager for support services Sam Januarie confirmed that 80 out of its 220 Namibian national workforce were sent home. He said the suspension of mining will be used to fokus on expansion underground.

“We tried with the open pit mining to supply ore to the plant but the quality of the ore was not up to standard,” he said. “We are still looking at where we can continue with open pit mining,” he said but that the promising underground reserve would now be the priority. According to Januarie it could take six to twelve months before mining underground kicks off properly. This is due to water that needs to be pumped out of existing tunnels with strong pumps and other research that needs to be completed. “Its not all doom,” he said.

Trigon Metals, which is listed on the Canadian stock exchange, provided investors with an update on 4 August saying that results from exploration drilling in the new zone Kavango pit were encouraging. Accoring to Jed Richardson, president and CEO of the company, “Kavango drilling and the early mining in this area have been very encouraging. Mineralisation has been far more consistent and massive, matching the nature of the mineralisation we find in the underground mine and other areas of the Kombat trend. These initial results confirm our confidence that our revised exploration and production focuse will provide significant upside,” he said. Down existing shafts that delve up to 750 meters below the surface, the 1% copper extracted from a thousand tons of ore from the open pits, and put through the mill every day, will increase to 2,6%.

By 7 July, 1,1 million tonnes of material had been moved since Trigon restarted copper concentrate production on 30 December 2021, and more than 120 000 tonnes of ore mined, of which almost 35 000 tones was fed through the mill and processed, producing more than 860 tonnes of copper concentrate grading 19,75% copper and 271,3 grams per ton of silver.

Already 548 tonnes of concentrate had been shipped by that date, and revenue received, an official statement read. “The Kombat Mine is advancing towards achieving commercial production. During this process, a number of challenges arose that were addressed successfully. A new loan facility was arranged, the processing plant capacity was increased to 350 tonnes per day and a second open pit, which will soon be yielding higher grade sulphide ore, was developed,” Richardson said according to that statement.

In a virtual update on 13 July, Richardson elaborated that it will cost US$25 million to go back underground, but added that, “the silver stream deal will pay for that.” Richardson made reference to an agreement with Canadian billionaire Eric Sprott, who provides a cash advance of US$2,5 million for a piece of the silver to be sold to a third party. Sprott will end up with less than 10% of the revenue stream with which Trigon plans to fund capital expenditure on new, better water pumps, further expansion of the mill to 2000 tonne per day capacity, and rolling equipment including its own fleet of scoop-trams and drills, and its own skilled underground mining workforce, Richardson said. Sprott is already a 20% shareholder in Trigon, he said.

With the next few months mapped out Richardson aluded to a return to the Asis Far West shaft which was built for 2000 ton production per day, but never used. “This is a mine with a lot of water, and it has flooded in the past, due to power outages,” Richardson explains. The tiered system of bringing the water up in stages due to limited capacity pumps, made the mine particularly vulnerable to flooding. “Those problems don’t need to be insurmountable in 2022,” Richardson said, elaborating that the new pumps will pump the water directly out from the bottom. While grid electricity is sufficient for all needs, back-up power generators will also be installed to keep the essential pumps running, while extracted water is already fed to a community garden bolstering food supply and providing income for locals.

In an earlier interview Januarie elaborated on the alarming amount of water which needs to be pumped from the mine: 1200m? per hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Of that the plant uses half, a quarter is provided to Namwater and the rest to surrounding farmers and Kombat town gardens. Kombat mine is owned 80% by Trigon Metals, 10% by Epangelo the state-owned mining entity, and 10% by local businessman Knowledge Katti.

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