African Minerals
Ore inspiring Africa Outlook takes a closer look at iron ore miner African Minerals Ltd's flagship Tonkolili mine in Sierra Leone Writer Emily Jarvis Project manager Ben Weaver Ore owners have described West Africa as the new frontier and the quest for its iron-ore resources has driven a railway and mining boom worth an estimated $25 billion. So many discoveries have been made in the region that it has been described as the new Pilbara, after the massive iron ore fields in Western Australia. AIM-listed African Minerals Ltd's (AML) Tonkolili mine in the Sula Mountain range in Sierra Leone sits on top of one of West Africa's largest iron ore deposits. The firm, founded by entrepreneur Frank Timis as Sierra Leone Diamond Company, spent seven years exploring the deposit before confirming the presence of a world-class magnetite iron ore deposit in 2009. The London based company signed a 99-year lease with the government of Sierra Leone to rehabilitate the 74km 1067mmgauge railway from the port of Pepel to the old mine at Marampa and build a 126km extension to a new iron-ore mine at Tonkolili. It began production just 14 months after the mining permit was issued and the fi rst ore trains ran in November 2011. The second phase "will entail the development of a new purpose built port at Tagrin Point. The new port will have the ability to load Cape Size vessels alongside the quay and avoid the costs of using transhipment vessels. At the mine a new major concentrator will be built,…
African Minerals
Ore inspiring Africa Outlook looks at iron ore miner African Minerals Ltd's flagship Tonkolili mine in Sierra Leone. Writer Ian Armitage Project manager Ben Weaver Ore owners have described West Africa as the new frontier and the quest for its iron-ore resources has driven a railway and mining boom worth an estimated $25 billion. So many discoveries have been made in the region that it has been described as the new Pilbara, after the massive iron ore fields in Western Australia. Aim-listed African Minerals Ltd's (AML) Tonkolili mine in the Sula Mountain range in Sierra Leone sits on top of one of West Africa's largest iron ore deposits. The firm, founded by entrepreneur Frank Timis as Sierra Leone Diamond Company, spent seven years exploring the deposit before confirming the presence of a world-class magnetite iron ore deposit in 2009. The London based company signed a 99-year lease with the government of Sierra Leone to rehabilitate the 74km 1067mmgauge railway from the port of Pepel to the old mine at Marampa and build a 126km extension to a new iron-ore mine at Tonkolili. It began production just 14 months after the mining permit was issued and the first ore trains ran in November 2011. The second phase "will entail the development of a new purpose built port at Tagrin Point. The new port will have the ability to load Cape Size vessels alongside the quay and avoid the costs of using transhipment vessels. At the mine a new major concentrator will be built, producing 30Mtpa of high…
