NGWENYA MINE TO REOPEN, EMPLOY 460

MBABANE – The Ngwenya town will once again come alive.  This follows the proposed resuscitating of the Ngwenya Iron Ore Mine, which is expected to employ about 460 people.

This is according to the Environmental Audit Report prepared by Vuka Lilanga Minerals Ltd, which has been identified as the investor in the proposed reopening of the mine.

According to the report, the local Mineral Management Board has succeeded in getting Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd as an investor to take over the operations and their recommendations have already been submitted to His Majesty King Mswati III.  The company’s Managing Director has been listed as Sivarana Prasad Petla.  

 
The Board has since approved the granting of a mining licence to process the  iron ore dumps.
The mine is expected to be operational again after it closed following the liquidation of SG Iron Ore Mining Pty Ltd in 2014, which was popularly known as Salgaocar.

Report

 Accordingly, the liquidator assigned R3 Services to conduct the Environmental Audit and submit the report, and in compliance with the Environmental Audit, Assessment and Review Regulations 200, the Eswatini Government  invited investors through the liquidator to take up the business opportunity, which has tangible economic benefits to the nation.

“The package for Vuka Lilanga Minerals included a mining lease together with all the necessary statutory permission transferred from SG Iron Ore Mining Pty Ltd to Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd, in order to resume the operations without any time delays,” reads the report in part.

It was stated that the liquidator would then pay all the debtors of the SG Iron Ore Mining Pty Ltd from the liquidation proceeds and Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd would be free from any liabilities of the previous operator.
The past operations’ liabilities inclusive of environmental liabilities, according to the report, lies with the liquidator, however, as an ongoing concern, the site would be brought to a better workable environment consistently being improved during the resuscitating operations.

Iron ore in Eswatini is predominantly found on the north-west boarders of the country. The area, which is now known as the Bomvu Ridge was first explored in 1946 when the Geological Mines and Survey Department first started prospecting the Ngwenya massif.

When operations were initially stopped, they left the hematite rich waste dumps with no attempt to rehabilitate the site for more than three decades.

“A mining licence was granted to Salgaocar Swaziland Pty Ltd (SSPL) in the year 2011, to reclaim the iron ore from the existing old dumps. However, with the declined mineral commodity prices, especially the iron ore, the company went into liquidation in 2014,” reads the report.

Reprocess

The project licence was awarded to the liquidated company for a period of seven years to reprocess the waste dumps to a quantum of 32 million tonnes generated by Anglo American.

Out of 32 million tonnes, the previous operations processed 4 895 309 tonnes between October 2011 to September 2014. The new approved investor, Vuka Lilanga Minerals, which is based in Mbabane, was granted the mining licence, included a mining lease together with all the necessary statutory permission transferred from SG Iron Ore Mining Pty Ltd to the new investor Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd in order to resume the operations without any time delays.

The site conditions, according to the report, are deteriorating on a fast pace since the operations were stopped abruptly and no further maintenance on either equipment/installation or site happened due to non-availability of technical know-how and financial support.

Excavation

The investor, Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd, has envisaged certain process methodologies to adopt, which include excavation and segregation at source, dry crushing and screening, wet screening and jigging for coarser sizes, spiral circuit for finer sizes and dewatering and recycling of water.

According to the report, Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd proposes to carry on with the logistics operations from the mine to Sidvokodvo rail by trucks and from there by rail to the ports.

“Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd consulted with Eswatini Railway for exploring possibilities to rehabilitate the rail line from Kadake to Matsapha, where Vuka Lilanga Minerals Pty Ltd obtained a positive response from Eswatini Railway that if the mine operations assured of more than 20 years, the railway line would be resuscitated within 36 months,” further reads the report.

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