Bikita Minerals embarks on $8m plant upgrade

BIKITA-based lithium mining company, Bikita Minerals has embarked on an $8 million plant upgrading and mineral exploration project which will see the company doubling production by end of the year.

In an interview, Mine Manager David Mwanza told The Herald business that the company will be looking forward to constructing a Dense Media Separation (DMS) plant at the mining site which will be used for the separation of metals and value addition of the minerals.

In a Dense Media Separation (DMS) plant, powdered ferrosilicon (an alloy of iron and silicone) is suspended in water to form a fluid near the density of diamond (3.52 g/cm3), to which the diamond bearing material is added to begin the separation process of the heavier minerals from the lighter material.

Mr Mwanza said the company will also embark on a mineral exploration exercise and $3.5 million has been set aside to that effect while plant upgrading is expected to gobble more than $ 4 million.

“It is true that Bikita Minerals is expanding.

“From the end of 2016 to the end of 2017, many changes will take place. In the reduction plant, new conveyor systems were installed together with a cone crusher and vibrating screens. A new DMS plant will be constructed to deal with fines from the current DMS plant. This will add to the total capacity of the DMS plant since the fines still contain some product.

An optical sorting machine is being installed to further pick product from the sink stream of the current DMS plant. The cost of this exercise is $4 million plus still another $3,5 million for exploration work,” he said.

Mr Mwanza said the plant upgrading exercise will result in increased production capacity from the current 4000 tonnes of lithium per month to about 8000 tonnes at the end of the exercise. Bikita has more than 600 employees. The mine holds the world’s largest known lithium deposits, estimated at 11 million tonnes.