HOTAZEL (miningweekly.com) – President Jacob Zuma on Friday launched a manganese sinter plant near Hotazel, in the Northern Cape, which is part of an integrated black women-led manganese mining and beneficiation complex that will supply a smelter to be located at the coast.

The complex, which is expected to be operational from May next year, has already produced manganese sinter using fines from neighbouring mines with the same geology.

Total investment on the site to date, including the development of the underground mine and infrastructure, is R5.3-billion.

The R1.6-billion sinter plant will be capable of producing 2.4-million tons of sinter a year.

On the surface is the tall mine headgear, a 17-million-litre water reservoir, an 11 kVA power line, 9.8 km of mine-built road and an 18.6 km rail link.

The underground ore has a manganese content of 37% to 38%, which the sinter plant will enhance to 47% and 48%.

The plant is part of an emerging manganese mine and beneficiation complex that is being developed by Kalagadi Manganese, a company headed by executive chairperson Daphne Mashile-Nkosi.

The Stanley Nqobizizwe Nkosi sinter plant has been named after Mashile-Nkosi’s deceased husband and a shaft has taken on the name of a woman in the area, Thembeka Myedi, now also deceased, who helped Kalagadi to secure its mining licence.

Kalagadi is also continuing with its plans for the construction of a manganese smelter in the Eastern Cape.

Discussions are under way with leading development finance institutions (DFIs) to fund the smelter, for which procurement is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2014.

International DFIs have shown a keen interest in the complex because of its beneficiation offering as well as its unique African characteristic of being women led.

Four 63 MVA furnaces are expected to be procured initially with provision made for an additional two furnaces that could be included at a later date.

The sinter plant had been operational until September, when a transformer failed.

This will be repaired during December and is expected to resume functioning in mid-January.

Envisaged is the railing of 700 000 t/y of sinter to the smelter within the Coega industrial development zone at the deep-water Ngqura port, near Port Elizabeth, which is designed to yield 320 000 t/y of high-carbon ferromanganese.

Of the 2.4-million tons of sinter expected to be produced a year, 700 000 t is earmarked for the smelter and the rest exported.

Export Credit Agency funding is expected to be secured for the purchase of the furnaces.