JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The definitive mining feasibility study (DMFS) for Phase 2 of Tanzania-focused mineral explorer Kibo Mining’s Mbeya coal-to-power project, in Tanzania, remains on schedule and “well” within budget, with early results indicating the potential for “signicant” reductions in the project’s operating expenditure (opex), the company said on Tuesday.

The dual-listed miner reported in a market update that it had decided to officially change the name of the Rukwa project to Mbeya to avoid further confusion of the company's coal-to-power project with similarly named projects that were owned by companies that had no relationship or association to Kibo.

Mbeya’s DMFS had now reached the midpoint and trade-off studies had indicated that all overburden material could be mined through free-digging and trucking.

“This will significantly reduce the coal mine opex and will also bring about a significantly safer operating environment, since drilling and blasting will no longer be required, eliminating the necessity for explosives on the mine site. 

“Even more exciting is the fact that the use of surface continuous mining equipment, identified as a possible mining method during the concept study, proved feasible at this stage,” the compamy noted.

This would allow precise accuracy in the extraction of the various coal seams and, more importantly, would eliminate the need for washing coal, making it possible to deliver the raw mined product directly into the power plant.

CEO Louis Coetzee added that preliminary geotechnical evaluations had also delivered positive results and did not identify any areas of concern related to the coal mine development or power plant construction.

"We are extremely pleased with the  progress of the current phase of the DMFS. As the studies progress and the commercial and statutory discussions reach increasing levels of maturity, the Mbeya project continues to demonstrate robust and improving project fundamentals,” he said.

Coetzee further noted that progress made to date continued to draw attention from third parties, particularly those expressing an interest in investing directly at project level.

In this regard, the company remained in “active discussions” with various investors and now saw regular additional enquiries from new supplementary third-party investment sources. 

“We are also very pleased with our new joint development partner Shandong Electric Power Construction No 3 Engineering Company, with whom an effective  and productive working relationship has already been established in a very short space of time,” he commented.

Kibo added that an extensive geotechnical investigation, including a geotechnical drill campaign, was scheduled to start within two weeks.

Data and findings from the geotechnical study would inform critical mine design criteria that would be required for work planned during Stage 2 of the DMFS. 

“All other routine activities associated with the ongoing feasibility work are taking place in parallel and remain on schedule as planned.

“Some of these activities include the establishment of a basic automated weather station, as well as a water testing hole. The latter will be drilled to support the mining environmental assessment,” the company reported.

Similarly, discussions and interaction with the Tanzanian government were  ongoing as part of the process to finalise the various critical agreements between the project and relevant government agencies.