Rutile was discovered in Sierra Leone in 1954 in the gravels of the LantiRiver south of the Gbangbama region in the southern province. Four groups of deposits are known to be distributed around the country: the Gbangbama, Sembehun, Rotifunk and the Kambia deposit. Sierra Leone has the largest natural rutile reserve in the world.

Dredge Mining

The Lanti Dredge is a floating electric bucket line dredge capable of mining 1,000 tonnes of ore per hour equating to approximately 7.2 million tonnes of ore annually.

The dredge is linked to a wet concentrator plant. Scrubbing and screening of the ore takes place on the dredge and de-sliming is completed in the concentrator plant. This process produces a sand fraction which then goes through a 3-stage upgrading process to produce a mineral concentrate containing about 70% heavy minerals.

Front-end loaders and 30-tonne dump trucks are then used to move the heavy mineral concentrate from the dredge to the feed preparation plant.

Dry Mining

The dry mining fleet uses conventional earth moving equipment capable of mining 500 tonnes of ore per hour equating to approximately 3.6 million tonnes of ore annually. Dry mining activities excavate in Gbeni (Lanti Dry) and Ganagama deposits. The minerals feed a concentrator, located adjacent to the Lanti and Gbeni deposits, which produces a heavy mineral concentrate for further processing.

Processing

Mineral concentrate from Lanti Dredge, Lanti Dry and Gangama are processed in the company’s mineral separation plant, which includes a feed preparation plant and dry plant. The mineral separation plant has a capacity of 200 thousand tonnes of rutile per annum.