Location
Malawi is a country in southern and eastern Africa that parallels the great Lake Malawi, the 5th largest freshwater lake in the world that fills part of the massive rift valley of the Africa continent. Malawi is a peaceful country known ubiquitously as “the warm heart of Africa”, with a government and legal system emanated from the English Westminster system (from colonial rule up to 1964). The Malawi Government has placed mining as the primary growth sector to diversify the Malawi economy and improve living conditions for its people. A growing mining industry is the central plank of the current President’s plans for nation building.
Kangankunde is located 90 kilometres north of the city of Blantyre, the main economic and commercial centre in Malawi. The town of Balaka, 15 kilometres to the north of Kangankunde, a regional trade centre, has a population of about 36,000 people. The project is located close to the main M1 highway, rail lines to ports and high voltage transmission lines.
Mineral Resource Estimate
The Phase 1 program comprised 12,670 metres of RC drilling and 10 core drill holes for 1,642.7 metres.
Diagram above is a plan map of the geology and the location of drill holes.
A substantial area of the complex remains untested.
Table 1: Rare Earths intersections for the entire Phase One Drill program
Neodymium and Praseodymium
The mineralisation is dominated by light Rare Earths of Cerium (Ce), Lanthanum (La), Neodymium (Nd) and Praseodymium (Pr). The total of Nd+Pr content in oxide form constitutes an average of 20.6% of the TREO in all holes reported to date.
Non-Radioactive Mineralisation
All drill samples are routinely scanned on site for radiation with consistently low counts per second (cps) returned. These low readings are supported by the low radiation content of the rare earths bearing monazite mineralisation.
Mineralisation at Kangankunde
Kangankunde is a carbonatite with variable contents of iron oxide, manganese oxide and pink potassic alteration. To date all the carbonatite assayed has been mineralised with Rare Earths elements hosted in the mineral monazite. A typical monazite contains various quantities of light Rare Earths. The monazite at Kangankunde has an unusual variation including Rare Earths elements like Praseodymium (Pr) and low Thorium levels (Ce,La,Nd,Pr)PO4. Figure 2 show iron and manganese oxide containing coarse green monazite.
Kangankunde contains brecciated rocks related to wall fracturing during the intrusive formation including mixed breccias of carbonatite and the wall rock, often altered gneiss. This rock type is being called a mixed breccia and contains monazite mineralisation in carbonatite occurring as clasts and matrix. Figure 3 shows core of mixed breccia with white-grey-brown carbonatite fragments and pink potassium altered gneiss.
Figure 2: Carbonatite with green coarse monazite mineralisation visible. KGKDD002 71.44m to 76.09m
Figure 3 Mixed breccia rock with carbonatite (white-grey- brown) and altered wall rock (pink- red) fragments: KGKDD003 61.8m to 66.48m
Deep Drill program
The second phase of drilling tested the extent of mineralisation at depth. Two 1 km long holes have been drilled, on from the west to the east and the other from the north to the south.
Diagram: Section 8327115mN and the relationship between deep drilling and resource definition drilling above.
Image 2: Serah Misuku, Site Program Geologist, with a section of drill core showing textual features of monazite, strontianite and baryte (replacing original burbankite crystal pseudomorphs) at 995.3m downhole.
Metallurgy
Metallurgy results confirm that gravity and magnetic beneficiation techniques are suitable for Kangankunde mineralisation, and resulted in a recovery of 70% at a concentrate grade of 60%, with the following notable findings:
Recovery ranges for rougher and cleaner stages of shaking table test-work on coarser (+53 µm) fractions range from 60% to 90%;
An initial evaluation of the Multi-Gravity Separator (MGS) demonstrates that recovery of fine-grained Rare Earths mineralisation is enhanced over that achieved using a shaking table, with a MGS achieving a 69.7% LREO recovery to a concentrate grading 51.7% LREO in one pass on a -53 µm fines sample; and
Preliminary wet high intensity magnetic separation (WHIMS) testing has demonstrated increases in the REO grade of a final concentrate to near 60% REO.
Metallurgical studies have been overseen by Specialised Metallurgical Services Pty Ltd with sections being outsourced to qualified third-party service providers including ALS Metallurgy, Auralia Metallurgy, Nagrom Mineral Processing Laboratory, GeoLabs Global, Multotec and Coremet.
Stage 1 Plant Design
Accompanying the ongoing drill program and metallurgical test work, Lindian has also made significant progress on design planning for a Stage One processing plant at Kangankunde.
The following key initiatives have been completed:
(i) a ROM pad has been established and clearing of the process plant area in planning,
(ii) the site layout plan is being established and the road upgrade from the M1 highway is under assessment,
(iii) power providers are being scoped for third party provision,
(iv) district wide ground survey for underground water sources is in progress in parallel to ground geotechnical surveys, and
(v) a detailed LIDAR topographic survey has been completed.
Engineering group Afengco (Pty) Ltd leads the process design study. Afengco (Pty) Ltd is a South Africa based engineering company that specialize in process engineering, electrical instrumentation, project management, HAZOP studies, project implementation, commissioning, operator training and operational support.
Kangankunde is a fully permitted mining project tenured to Mining License MML0290/22 and permitted to Environmental Certificate ESIA No: 2.10.16.
Image 5: Elevated view of the recovery circuit and tailings thickener.
Image 6: Side view of the recovery circuit and concentrate filter press and packing shed and tails thickener
Project Infrastructure
Civil infrastructure engineering group Infracon Limited, a Malawian company, leads the civil engineering design team.
Civil works programs consist of:
Detailed engineering design and upgrade of 5km of access road to the M1,
Design and construction of a mining laydown area,
Design and construction of a plant workshop,
Design and construction of an administration building,
Design and construction of civil works for the process plant area,
Design and construction of bore water field pumping and storage,
Design and construction of potable water supply,
Location of a weighbridge,
Design, construction and security of an explosives magazine,
Design and construction of power plant and capacity (third party provider),
Design construction and location of a Tailings Storage Facility (TSF),
Civil geotechnical survey (completed),
Planning for future expansion area allocation.
Civil Geotechnical Survey
Infracon has supervised a completed civil geotechnical engineering works program that provides criteria into ground stability conditions that impact the design of foundations needed to support the plant and ancillary operations. Geotechnical consultants Geoconsult, a Malawi’s geotechnical consultancy group undertook the survey.
Ground Water Survey
Hydrogeotec Company, a Malawian company that specializes in hydrogeological services, has successfully completed a ground survey for water in the licence holdings of the project in collaboration with the Malawian Government services for water resources. A drill program has identified productive water bores capable of supplying enough water for operations, that are being used as the basis of a licence to extract, store and discharge water from the licence area.
Tenure and licences
Lindian Resources Limited will progressively acquire 100% of Malawian registered Rift Valley Resource Developments Limited and its 100% owned title to Exploration Licence EPL0514/18R and Mining Licence MML0290/22 issued under the Malawi Mines and Minerals Act 2018. The Exploration and Mining Licences have an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Licence No.2:10:16 issued under the Malawi Environmental Management Act No. 19 of 2017.
Forward Looking Statements
These materials may include forward-looking statements, based on Lindian’s expectations and beliefs concerning future events. Forward-looking statements are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside the control of Lindian, which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Lindian makes no undertaking to subsequently update or revise the forward-looking statements made in this announcement, to reflect the circumstances or events after the date of the announcement.
Competent Persons Statements
The information Reports that relate to drilling, sampling, and assay results is based on information compiled by Mr. Alistair Stephens, who is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). Mr. Stephens is the Chief Executive Officer of Lindian Resources Limited. Mr. Stephens has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the ‘Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves’ (JORC Code). Mr. Stephens consents to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on the information in the form and context in which it appears.
Unless otherwise stated, where reference is made to previous releases of exploration results in this announcement, the Company conforms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in those announcements and all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the exploration results included in those announcements continue to apply and have not materially changed.
The information in this report that relates to previous Exploration Results was prepared and first disclosed under the JORC Code 2012 and has been properly and extensively cross-referenced in the text to the date of the original announcement to the ASX.