On March 3, manganese miner Comilog, part of French group Eramet, received on the tarmac of the airport of Mvengué in Gabon two 35 t Sandvik QA451 mobile mining screens as well as spare parts, intended for the Bangombé mine. This new shipment from the Sandvik screens factory in Ballygawley, Northern Ireland, made as close as possible to the mining facilities, is the third of its kind. This model has 6 m x 1.5 m triple deck screens.

These screens are used for dry ore mining, a proven method that has enabled the company to meet its production targets over the past two years. The company says it placed this new order to support the increase in production, set at 7 Mt/y for 2021, and to remain competitive. The next day, tank carriers transported the cargo in convoys to the main Moanda operational site.

The Moanada site currently operated, on the Bangombe plateau, is expected to be exhausted in the coming years. After several years of studies, a decision was also made to open a new mine on the Okouma plateau, 13 km to the north of Moanda which started up in October 2020. This is being supplemented by the construction of a new washing plant that can handle mineral supplies from both Bangombe and Okouma. Dry ore mining will also be utilised at the new operation so the sites now have a mix of dry and wet processing – in 2020, 5.8 Mt of manganese ore was produced, up 22% from 2019.