London Mining in Sierra Leone

The Marampa mine is located 125km by road north-east of Freetown and 40km by dedicated haul road from tidewater at the Thofeyim river terminal.

The Marampa deposit was first discovered in 1926 and open pit production was commenced by the Sierra Leone Development Company (“Delco”) and William Baird between 1933 and 1975. By the 1960’s iron ore production had reached 2 Mtpa before low iron ore prices forced the mines closure. Continuing weak market economics and the civil war prevented redevelopment of the mine until the mining licence was acquired by London Mining in 2006.

London Mining secured an option to acquire the mining rights at the Marampa mine in December 2005. After securing funding, London Mining was able to exercise the option in January 2006 and in September 2006 the Marampa mining lease was assigned to LMC, a 100% subsidiary of LondonMining. The Marampa mine recommenced production in December 2011.

London Mining is developing Marampa in two phases. Phase 1 is in production and will be expanded to produce 5Mtpa of sinter concentrates from a blend of tailings from previous operations and soft highly weathered ore. A bankable feasibility study outlining an expansion to 9Mtpa will be completed in Q3 2012.

A PFS has been completed for a  Phase 2 expansion which will produce over 16Mtpa of concentrate from the remainder of the Marampa ore body over a 25 year mine life.

The maps below show the location of the operations in Sierra Leone

 

London Mining  PLC (LOND.L)

London Mining Plc is developing mines to supply the global steel industry. The Company has iron ore exploration and development projects located in Sierra Leone, Saudi Arabia, Greenland, China and Chile, and a coking coal project in Colombia read more...