Kombat overshoots target in first month

A month after Canadian company Trigon Metals resumed mining at its Kombat mine in central Namibia, the ramp-up to full production is going well, with set targets surpassed.

According to an update issued by the company, president and chief executive officer Jed Richardson said the set target for Kombat in May was 120 000 tonnes of mined rock, but 124 000 tonnes were mined.

“The work for May was strictly waste tonnes, but high-grade mineralisation has been exposed in several areas of the pit. The first ore tonnes are scheduled to be mined towards the end of June,” he said.

According to the update, blasts have occurred on schedule once a week, and this schedule will be maintained until the mill starts at the end of July, whereupon blasts are scheduled twice a week.

“We anticipate mining rates will average 8 000 tonnes per day when the mine is in full operation. However, in start-up mode, mining rates have reached up to 10 000 tonnes on days when the team has pushed to test capacity.

“Current drilling at East 600 is increasing our confidence of adding more high-grade ore and reducing our overall strip ratio.

We will continue to test areas around the planned open pits: East 400, East 600 and East 900 as potential sources for adding near surface high-grade ore.

“In addition, drilling is planned for the Otavi area, 12km west of the Kombat mining permit to test the limbs of our 35km of mineralised strike-length corridor,” Richardson said.

The assays have been prepared and classified by Trigon Mining (Namibia)(Pty) Ltd and all sample assay results have been monitored through the company’s quality assurance/quality control programme. Drill core was sent to African Laboratory Specialists Namibia – an independent laboratory located at Kombat – for analysis.

Trigon will be participating in a live virtual non-deal roadshow session for stakeholders, investors and other individual followers today. – email: matthew@namibian.com.na