Mutamba Mineral Sands Project

 mine, titanium ore deposit

This is the area covered by the Mutamba Mineral Sands Project which is an amalgamation of 2 separate projects, Savannah Resources Jangamo Project and Rio Tinto’s Mutamba Project. In late 2016 Savannah and Rio Tinto created a Consortium Agreement in which the Jangamo and Mutamba projects were combined into a single project with Savannah as the operator. Savanna has an initial 10% interest with options to increase that holding to 51% as the project progresses, and by conducting the scoping and feasibility studies. As part the agreement Rio Tinto has the option to purchase 100% of the produced concentrate as part of an off-take sales contract.

The project is comprised of four licences covering an area of approximately 602km². Three of the licences are contiguous and located in the Mutamba area, and the other, Chilubane, is located 180km to the south west of the Mutamba Project near Xai-Xai. Independantly the area of each is:

-1336L which includes Mutamba deposit at 118.8km².
-566L which includes Dongane and Ravene deposits at 163.6km².
-562L Chilubane at 141km².
-3617L which includes Jangamo at 180km².

Heavy mineral sands are placer deposits usually formed in beach environments by concentration due to the specific gravity of the actual grains. The mineralization at Mutamba consists of titanium dioxide minerals that occur in the form of ilmenite, rutile and leucoxene, and zircon. The minerals are hosted in prograding, silliciclastic sediments which were deposited long ancient and current coastlines by the Limpopo River over long periods of time.

As of March 2018 and based on current work done to date, and the pre-feasibility study, the estimated initial Indicated and Inferred reserves are 4.4 billion tonnes of Heavy Minerals at a 3.9%. grade which will allow for a 30 year life of mine. The property also has good exploration potential for other desposits and the Consortium has a long term goal of 7 to 12.0 billion tonnes at 3% to 4.5% grades.

Mining will be conducted using conventional dry methods where mining is done without water or dredging, and uses conventional mining equipment. This method is used in placer and alluvial deposits and is best suited when the deposit is shallow, unconsolidated, and free flowing. The processing of mined ore consists of a heavy mineral separation circuit where it is separated into the products ilmenite, rutile, and zircon.

As of March 2018 the mineable ore was 200 million tonnes grading 7% total heavy minerals with production targets of 456,000 tonnes per annum of ilmenite and 118,000 tonnes per annum of rutile plus zircon concentrate. On December7,2017 a pilot processing plant was opened by Daniel Chapo, Governor of Inhambane Province at the time. First production is projected to start in 2020.