Sierra Leone's main iron ore miner, African Minerals (AML) recorded a near 200% increase in its sale for 2013. According to a brief from the company, it sold 12.1 million metric tonnes (Mt) up from 4.1 Mt in 2012.
Sales during the last three months of last year reached 3.8Mt, higher than 2.8Mt recorded in the third quarter of the year, according to RTTNews, an Internet-based newswire service and content creation business based in New York.
On January 10, 2014 the operator of the Tonkolili iron ore mine in Sierra Leone
announced the news confirming that production level was also achieved for that calendar year.
Exports for the quarter reached an all-time high, with 22 vessels sailing, a record calendar month performance to date from the integrated operations, the company says.
Frank Timis, Executive Chairman of African Minerals, is quoted as saying that "African Minerals has made strong progress during 2013 and especially in Q4 and it is particularly pleasing to see a record nine shipments in the month of December. The Tewoo transaction is continuing to move forward and I look forward to welcoming Tewoo as a partner in the project and a shareholder in the Company during 2014."
Bernie Pryor, Chief Executive Officer of African Minerals, said: "The Tonkolili project finalised its construction only in May 2013, and has been in the process of commissioning and ramping up over the last eight months. We are pleased with how that ramp up has progressed and we look forward to achieving the sustainable 20Mtpa run rate during 2014." He expressed confidence that in 2014 they could see the project's production stabilise at the 20Mtpa target run rate.
“We expect to be able to achieve a near term low capital cost optimisation and expansion to our infrastructure capacity, and we intend to start the construction of the first of our Phase II saprolite plants at the end of this year, with up to 10Mtpa of final product concentrate processing capability being brought online in 2016, allowing us to extend the life of our DSO operations.” Pryor said.
(C) Politico 28/01/14
