Province Katanga Province Closed 2008 Opened 2005 | Products Copper Company Anvil Mining | |
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Country Democratic Republic of the Congo | ||
Mutoshi Mine is a copper mine in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. As of 2011 it was 70% owned by Anvil Mining and 30% by the state-owned Gécamines. The mine was placed on care and maintenance in late 2008.
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Background
The Mutoshi Mine is an old open pit copper mine on the Kolwezi Klippe in the west of the Congo Copperbelt. It is a reduced facies type copper deposit made up of two ore beds separated by a layer of siliceous dolomite. The mine was first opened in 1903, and was initially worked for gold. Between 1960 and 1987 a washing plant at the mine discharged mineralized material into the Kulumaziba watercourse. Samples of the first 7.5 kilometres (4.7 mi) of the deposit indicated a resource of about 102,000 tonnes of contained copper.
Tailings operation
In November 2004, Anvil Mining agreed to pay US$12.5 million for a 70% interest in the Mutoshi copper-cobalt project from the state-owned Gécamines and the private DRC company Emiko. The property included the old Mutoshi mine, the Kulumaziba coarse rejects/tailings deposit, the Mutoshi Northwest deposit, the Nioka deposit, the Kamukonko cobalt prospect, and prospective ground on the Kolwezi Klippe.
In October 2005 the Economist Intelligence Unit reported that Anvil's claim to Mutoshi was being disputed by Chemaf, an Indian-based company that operates the Etoile copper and cobalt mine. Chemaf, which apparently had strong political connections in the DRC, claimed it acquired the rights to Mutoshi in a 2003 deal with Emiko. The case was seen as an important test of the Mining Code's guarantee that the courts will uphold property rights.
In late 2005, Anvil started mining the tailings, at first with good results. However, the company faced competition with artisanal miners on the property, and heavy rainfall had the effect of washing the more valuable coarser-grained tailings downstream, leaving less valuable fine-grained tailings. With increasingly poor results, operations were halted at the end of 2008.
Future potential
In 2009, Anvil completed a scoping study for phasing out the existing Heavy Media Separation (HMS) operation and replacing it with SX-EW processing of oxide open pit mine feed, processing copper and cobalt deposits around the old Mutoshi mine. Further drilling and testing were needed before the feasibility could be confirmed.