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Zambian government not to give licenses for uranium mining S
Sunday, 18 Jul 2010
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Mr Maxwell Mwale mines minister of Zambia said that government won’t give licenses to companies for mining of uranium until necessary legislation is put in place to ensure safety of citizens.
He told lawmakers that before any uranium mining could be embarked upon, the necessary legislation to ensure the safety of the citizens should be in place.
With regards to uranium stockpiling by Equinox Minerals Limited owned Lumwana Mine in northwestern province of the country, Mr Mwale urged citizens not to despair as safety measures were being taken into consideration.
A recent report by Equinox Minerals Limited, the miner has increased copper output by more than 44% at its Lumwana unit in Zambia in the Q2 of 2010 with production of uranium increased at the Greenfield open pit mine.
Mr Craig Williams president & CEO of Equinox said that the uranium copper ore was being diverted away from the copper concentrator to stockpiles and was being classified and expensed as waste to the copper project. This uranium copper ore stockpile may be treated at a later date, if and when the firm builds a uranium plant.
In its report for the first six months ending June 30, Lumwana’s copper output rose more than 44% after the Greenfield open pit mine produced 43,835 tonnes of copper during the second quarter this year, raising the production of the metal to 74,306 tonnes of copper in concentrate, resulting in the company to maintain its guidance for this year of 135,000 tonnes of copper production.
Mr Williams said that production is 44% higher than the previous quarter and 80% higher than the corresponding quarter in 2009. Production of 43,835 tonnes of copper for the quarter reflects a substantially improved performance in all major areas of the mine and is an outstanding result and a credit to the intense hard work put in by the Lumwana team to improve the productivity of operations.
According to preliminary results, although still impacted by some wet weather early in the quarter, total material moved was 26.6 million tonnes representing an annualized rate in excess of 100 million tonnes while ore mined exceeded 5 million tonnes for the first time.
He said that improvements in mobile equipment availability, equipment utilization and productivity all contributed to the improvement in material mined. The improved utilization and productivity resulted from the Hitachi fleet moving into new pit stages to the north and the south of the Starter Pit; stages that had been stripped of oxide material by the light fleet over the prior two quarters.
Mr Williams said that more efficient and productive mining has resulted from the opening up of these additional stages where improved mine planning practices utilizing longer working faces, larger blasts and higher benches markedly improved results.
And in addition to the 5.09 million tones of copper ore mined during the quarter, mining of the uranium zones at Valeria South and Valeria North within the Malundwe pit continued during the quarter with 1.15 million tones of uranium copper ore mined.