This month, Namibia-based lithium, tin and tantalum miner Andrada Mining confirmed its starting of an initial exploration programme at the Brandberg West exploration licence, at the opencast Brandberg West mine, in the Erongo region.

The new prospecting programme will involve drilling over 3 000 m of the EPL5445 target to test the polymetallic mineralisation of the historical opencast operation.

The programme will also include an investigation of the mineralised extensions beyond the previously mined site.

Andrada Mining CEO Anthony Viljoen says the exploration programme will enable the company to determine the extent of the mineralisation in and around the Brandberg West mine.

“The project provides an exciting opportunity for us to duplicate the development process we have successfully implemented at Uis in the Erongo region, by taking it from an abandoned historical operation to a fully-fledged producing mine,” he adds.

Andrada Mining notes that the Brandberg West licence area is largely underexplored, with the pit boasting over 20 years of continuous concentrate production and vein-hosted polymetallic mineralisation.

The Brandberg West licence, covering 35 000 ha, started as an opencast mine in 1957 and production peaked in 1978 with 1 249 t of tin and tungsten concentrate. The deposit is likely open-ended at depth and along the strike with the system continuing for 3 km along the strike.

Formerly AfriTin Mining, until a January rebrand, Andrada Mining has mining and exploration assets in Namibia, including the formerly Gold Fields-owned and -operated Brandberg West mine, which was historically a prolific producer of tin and tungsten with strong indications of copper mineralisation.

Viljoen explains that historical exploration results point to the EPL5445 target area having the potential to double the current volume of tin concentrate produced at Uis, as well as add tungsten to the expanding list of metals produced by Andrada.

“The Erongo region continues to prove itself to be an untapped technology metals province, and we are excited to be commencing work on what we believe will be another world class technology metals asset,” he adds.

Viljoen adds that Brandberg West will solidify Andrada’s technology metals portfolio by potentially adding critical metals revenue streams of tungsten, and copper as a by-product.

“We look forward to re-establishing the historical Brandberg West mine,” he concludes.