Design and planning studies to complete the refurbishment and construction of the Pepel Port and Pepel–Marampa railway system are well under way to enable shipping of hematite product from the Tonkolili duricrust — an early cash flow opportunity for the Company. African Minerals has completed its own independent preliminary study to rehabilitate the Port and Railway and has appointed Scott Wilson Railways to undertake a detailed engineering study on the rehabilitation of the Pepel to Marampa Railway. The exclusive lease and subsequent engineering studies underline the Company's strong working relationship with the Government of Sierra Leone and commitment to improving the country's infrastructure whilst securing the rail, port and power capacity requirements for our iron ore projects.
Engineering studies to date on the heavy haul railway system linking Tonkolili to Tagrin Point indicate that the future construction and commissioning of the system is unlikely to provide any material engineering obstacles. A preliminary rail alignment has been established and the concepts regarding rolling stock, support facilities, loading and unloading infrastructure and supporting infrastructure are well advanced.
Tagrin Point offers an opportunity to economically construct a deep water port facility as it is located in one of the world's largest natural harbours. Identified as the best location for a world class iron ore transport, ore handling and ship-loading facility for Sierra Leone, Tagrin Point is also being developed with capacity capability to service the greater West African sub-region.
DFS
In October 2009, African Minerals appointed WorleyParsons Europe Ltd to undertake the Definitive Feasibility Study ("DFS") and Front End Engineering Design ("FEED") programmes for Tonkolili and related infrastructure projects. WorleyParsons has built a reputation as a provider of quality engineering and project services to the minerals industry and is at the forefront of latest industry developments and practices. The newly appointed African Minerals team recently worked closely with WorleyParsons on a project of similar size and complexity in northwest Australia for FMG.
Phase One of the DFS, a scoping study, commenced in October 2009 with a desk-top review of project data and an in-country visit by a team of senior managers and technical experts. The desk-top review focused on assessment of previous study work, relevant Government of Sierra Leone information and general data available from the proposed work sites. The in-country visit allowed a quick convergence on the facilities scope and established a number of key industry and Government contacts.
Key outcomes from the first phase were:
- an agreed base case facilities scope for subsequent study in the DFS/FEED
- a detailed plan for undertaking the DFS/FEED phases
- a detailed estimate of costs to complete the study
The first phase was successfully completed on time and under budget in mid-December. This allowed an early start on some critical DFS activities such as field data gathering programmes including Hydrology, Geotechnical and Environmental Baseline studies of the port and rail infrastructure corridor as well as the mine-site itself.
We believe that African Minerals will benefit significantly as the project is de-risked further by the completion of the Definitive Feasibility Study at Tonkolili, enabling the team, subject to funding, to move into the construction phase of the project .
Tonkolili — Pepel Survey
African Minerals invested considerable survey resource during 2009 in preparation for the development of significant infrastructure for Port, Railway, and Process Plant infrastructure required for Tonkolili.
This preparatory work ensures that survey information compliant to industry best practice is available, providing seamless and accurate information for DFS studies and other activities, where precise location based information is critical for the full 180 km long project corridor.
Country-wide primary survey was established in Sierra Leone during the early 1960s; however, local records had been subsequently lost or destroyed. The Company gained access to original records held by the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain3 to identify approximate locations of survey point locations, and subsequently led a project to re-establish a primary survey network for North East Sierra Leone.
Chartered Surveyors Longdin & Browning (Surveys) Ltd ("L&B") re-mapped historic first order survey point infrastructure, generating a survey network compliant to the Internationally recognised Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system. This work allows all ongoing project survey work to be tied in to the same UTM coordinate system, and ensures that all ongoing survey work is correctly referenced to the same authoritative reference network.
A high resolution LiDAR and High Resolution Digital Imagery survey was also completed in March 2009 by AAMHatch Pty Ltd for the entire Tonkolili Project catchment, Railway corridor, and Port areas. This airborne survey is fully tied in to the primary control network established by L&B, and gives full terrain surface and associated aerial image of the project area of up to 15 cm resolution. This is a mission critical and authoritative dataset used by many disciplines in the expedited development of the project.
It is also of great importance in establishing an environmental baseline prior to the construction phase of the project, enabling the Company to fully document all aspects of the region including the location of settlements, watercourses, vegetation distribution, and other key points of interest.