By: Creamer media's

The company bought two new dredges as part of an upgrade to the mine’s Wet Concentrator Plant (WCP) A, with the first dredge having arrived on site on July 21.

Kenmare COO Ben Baxter confirms that all key components required for the upgrade of the plant are now on site, which represents another important milestone in the company’s progressive de-risking of the project.

Next, Kenmare will transport both dredges to the staging pond by road on platform vehicles called self-propelled modular transporters, which Kenmare also used in 2020 when it relocated its WCP B plant.

The upgrade work and switching out of dredges is on track to start during the third quarter and will take between three and four weeks.

Once the upgrade is complete, WCP A will start a transition from its current mining area in Namalope to the Nataka orezone, which is expected to take about 18 months.

Nataka is the largest orezone in the Moma portfolio, representing about 70% of Moma’s nine-billion-tonne mineral resource.

WCP A is expected to mine the Nataka deposit for the rest of its economic life, which exceeds 20 years. Kenmare says the transition to the Nataka orezone is essential to securing production at Moma for decades to come.