The primary target is magnesite from the Nyala mine, a venture entered into with the local community.  Nyala is situated in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.  It comprises a 1.3 million ton surface tailings resource and SMI will install a concentration plant on site to produce a 90% magnesite concentrate.

 

The main magnesite body at Nyala Mine occupies an area of 1 060m by 200m and occurs up to the depth of about 200m.  The deposit is amorphous in nature and is hosted by metamorphosed ultrabasic and calcareous rocks of the Mobile Belt.  It constitutes approximately 12% magnesite.  Historically mining of magnesite in the area was carried out by surface mining methods in which the ore body was quarried by means of heavy equipment and hand sorted into a product that contained up to 98% MgCO₃.

 

Magnesite mining at Nyala Mine left two large volume un-rehabilitated tailing dumps, spoil materials and hazardous excavations, along with multiple additional smaller dumps. These dumps, due to the particular requirement of processing larger size particles of magnesite, contain a magnesite content in excess of 10%. SMI intends to commence processing these dumps.