Andrada Mining expects its Uis processing plant to be transformed into a full production facility within the next six months as the Namibian miner looks to use stronger tin cash flows to support the development of its growing portfolio of critical-mineral projects.
Chief executive Anthony Viljoen said the existing Uis plant began essentially as a pilot operation but has developed into a cash-generating production facility, with further improvements now planned.
“The plant is old. You know, we did start, as I said, just as a pilot plant. But, you know, the testament to my team, we’ve actually turned it into a production facility. And I think in the next six months, you’ll see that plant totally transformed into a full production facility,” Viljoen said in an interview with VSA Capital on Tuesday.
The disclosure provides a clearer timetable for changes at Uis as Andrada seeks to extract greater value from an operation that already produces tin but also contains lithium, tantalum and rubidium.
Viljoen said Uis had effectively become the company’s “cash engine”, providing it with the ability to fund work across its wider Namibian portfolio.
The company believes current conditions in the tin market provide an opportunity to generate stronger cash flows while it considers longer-term expansion.
Viljoen said Andrada had been involved in the tin market since 2008 and believed new global production remained some distance away.
“I think that any new production coming into the tin market is at minimum 18 months away. So, you know, we’ve got a real sort of runway now to make a lot of cash,” he said.
He added that Andrada could potentially finance a significant part of its future expansion from internally generated cash flow.
The Uis development strategy is increasingly about extracting several commodities from the same orebody rather than relying exclusively on tin.
Viljoen said Andrada’s modelling indicates that lithium revenue from Uis could eventually equal or surpass revenue generated from tin.
The lithium at Uis occurs predominantly as petalite rather than spodumene, which has presented metallurgical challenges.
“What we’ve modelled is that the lithium could equal or even surpass the tin revenues,” Viljoen said.
He acknowledged that petalite had proved more complicated than initially anticipated because of variability within the orebody, but said the company now had a better understanding of the processing flowsheet required to produce a marketable product.
Andrada is also examining opportunities to increase revenue from tantalum and potentially rubidium.
Viljoen said tantalum was already providing useful credits, while describing Uis as potentially hosting one of the world’s largest rubidium deposits. The company is, however, conscious that the market for rubidium is considerably smaller than the size of the resource could potentially support.
The strategy at Uis forms part of a broader attempt by Andrada to develop several mineral revenue streams across its Namibian operations.
At Brandberg West, Viljoen said mineralisation currently being followed extends for about three to four kilometres, with opportunities including historic tailings, high-grade veins and a potentially larger mineralised system.
Ore-sorting test work has also produced encouraging results.
“We’ve done some test work on ore sorting, which works really well, picks those veins out, you know, excellently,” Viljoen said.
He described the key attributes of Brandberg West as high grades, multiple commodities and the potential for relatively straightforward entry into production.
Andrada’s initial focus at Brandberg West had been copper, which occurs as a halo around tin and tungsten veins, but rising tungsten prices have increased the company’s attention on that commodity.
Test material from Brandberg West is being transported to Uis for processing through the company’s ore sorters as Andrada seeks to demonstrate that it can produce a saleable tungsten-rich concentrate.
Lithium Ridge represents the third major component of the company’s growth strategy.
The project is being developed with Chilean lithium producer SQM, which is funding exploration under their joint venture arrangement and providing technical expertise.
Viljoen said Andrada believed Lithium Ridge could develop into one of the largest spodumene lithium deposits in sub-Saharan Africa, although substantial exploration and resource-definition work remains necessary.
“We’ve got the cash engine, but then we’ve also got these fully funded JV partnerships and, you know, SQM is a classic one,” he said.
The comments come a day after Andrada released its fifth batch of drilling results from Lithium Ridge, extending the evidence of lithium mineralisation across the project.
Viljoen said the combination of production at Uis and externally funded development partnerships at Lithium Ridge and Brandberg West had changed Andrada’s position from that of a conventional junior explorer.
“We’re producing, we’ve got fully funded joint venture projects on our growth projects, and we’re busy expanding,” he said.
Andrada has operated in Namibia for nearly 12 years and Viljoen said about 98% of its workforce is Namibian.
