Northern Graphite’s move to recruit a project manager to oversee engineering, construction, commissioning and handover in a “remote operating environment” is the clearest operational signal yet that the company is again positioning its long-idle Okanjande graphite mine for restart after years on care and maintenance.
The company describes Okanjande as a fully permitted former producer (2017–2018) with a planned production rate of about 31,000 tonnes a year and a restart timeline of roughly one year from a construction decision, but explicitly conditions that schedule on financing.
That caveat matters because Northern has repeatedly tied Okanjande’s return to capital availability, and its own published restart targets have shifted over time.
In August 2023, when it released a preliminary economic assessment focused on relocating processing capacity from Okorusu to the mine site, Northern said the operation was on care and maintenance and that the “goal remains to restart production in late 2024, subject to financing.”
In more recent public commentary, the restart horizon has moved further out, with industry coverage now framing Namibia concentrate production as part of a longer-dated ramp that extends into 2028.
What Northern is trying to restart is not a marginal asset. On its own Okanjande project page, the company states that Okanjande “hosts 1.6 Mt of battery grade graphite of M&I Resources” and carries a current mine life of 10 years.
The same page reiterates that the operation’s restart plan hinges on funding and highlights the strategic decision to relocate processing operations to the mine site to cut costs and improve expansion potential.
More detailed resource numbers sit behind that headline “battery grade” figure. Northern’s August 2023 PEA disclosure sets out measured and indicated resources across three material types, alongside inferred tonnes.
It reported a weathered resource of 5.9 million tonnes containing 248,000 tonnes of graphite (M&I) plus 0.5 million tonnes containing 17,000 tonnes graphite (inferred); a transitional resource of 1.2 million tonnes containing 53,000 tonnes graphite (M&I) plus 0.1 million tonnes containing 2,000 tonnes graphite (inferred); and a much larger fresh rock resource of 24.2 million tonnes containing 1.3 million tonnes graphite (M&I) plus 7.2 million tonnes inferred containing 0.4 million tonnes graphite, using stated cut-offs and price assumptions. Northern also stressed the standard technical warning that mineral resources are not mineral reserves and therefore do not yet have demonstrated economic viability.
The relocation concept is central to Northern’s belief that Okanjande can be restarted “quickly” once the funding decision is made.
The PEA evaluated moving the processing plant for Namibian operations from Okorusu to Okanjande rather than rehabilitating the mill where it sits, arguing the shift increases capital needs but lowers operating costs and reduces emissions, partly by eliminating the haulage of mineralised material around 70 km to Okorusu.
Northern’s project page aligns with that logic, stating that the plant move is designed to lower operating costs, reduce waste, and improve sustainability and expansion potential.
The job advertisement you cited, with its emphasis on contractor governance, compliance with Namibian mining, labour, environmental and safety legislation, and “operational readiness and start-up activities,” fits that relocation-and-restart pathway.
In practical terms, a project manager’s mandate of that kind usually emerges only when a company moves from “study and wait” into execution planning: locking designs, managing EPC/EPCM interfaces, preparing for commissioning, and building the systems that turn an idled asset into an operating mine.
Even so, Northern’s own language remains careful: restart is framed as achievable within a year of a construction decision, but only “pending financing.”
The hiring drive, therefore, reads as a step toward implementation rather than a final confirmation that all restart funding is already secured.
The underlying direction, however, is clear: after years of deferral linked to capital constraints, Northern is now staffing for delivery at Okanjande, leaning on a sizeable measured-and-indicated resource base and a relocation plan intended to improve operating economics and scalability.
