London Mining is working on expanding the iron ore project it operates in Sierra Leone. The company hopes to load its first shipment from the Marampa mine this month.
The ship, booked by its sales partner Glencore International, is expected to arrive in Freetown on January 23, 2012 with the first shipment destined for Europe. The company hopes to bring up the production capacity of the mine by 25% after it finishes the expansion. The current production of iron ore at the mine equals 57,000 tonnes.
The Chief Executive Officer of London Mining, Graeme Hossie said that shipping ore to Europe was very good for margins and very good for lowering transport costs. He added that the shipment from Marampa mine would be the first shipment from Sierra Leone to Europe of iron ore for over 30 years.
The Marampa operation is likely to produce 3.5 million tonnes of iron ore in 2013 and in 2014 it is expected to produce 4.6 million tonnes . The discovery of higher quality ore has helped raise the spending capital for the company from $234 million in 2011 to $260 in 2012.
Mr Hossie announced that the bankable feasibility study for Marampa will now consider an additional expansion of the reconfigured Phase 1 plant to 9Mtpa utilizing existing infrastructure with the addition of new crushing, grinding and gravity separation circuits to the processing plant.