Africa-focused battery metals investment and exploration company Marula Mining has secured R20-million of new mobile mining equipment for its Blesberg lithium and tantalum mine, in South Africa.

The equipment was procured through Marula’s partner in the Blesberg project Q Global Commodities Group’s existing relationship with one of its principal equipment suppliers Bell Equipment.

The new mining equipment includes a Kobelco SK380XDLC excavator, a JCB 3CX backhoe loader, two new JCB 456ZX wheel loaders and two new Bell B25E articulated dump trucks, which are scheduled to start arriving on site later in April.

The new equipment is expected to assist the mining contractors to more than double the capacity to mine the stockpiled material and begin activities on the underlying hard rock resources in the identified pegmatites.

Movement of stockpiled material will allow the company to start an initial resource drilling programme that is scheduled to start at Blesberg later in the second quarter and will form part of its plans to establish a hard rock opencast lithium mining operation.

The availability of this new mining equipment on site will also allow Marula to accelerate its plans to begin development and mining of the underlying hard rock resources contained in the pegmatites.

“We are excited to have secured this new mining equipment, which has come about through our strengthening and broad partnership that we are building with Q Global. The confidence we now have, given this relationship with Q Global, has really given us the opportunity to commit to this new equipment and secure it in a timely and very cost effective manner.

“This equipment will have a major impact on our operations at Blesberg and allow us to increase the movement of the existing stockpiles and accelerate work on the planned resources drilling programme and mine planning for development of the resources within the pegmatites.

“I previously stated that our new relationship with Q Global would mean we can accelerate and further develop the assets we have in our portfolio, and I believe this is a clear indication of the value of this relationship,” comments Marula CEO Jason Brewer.