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Overview -
The Ambatovy mine site is located 80 kilometers east of Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, and lies within a few kilometers of the main road and rail system connecting Antananarivo and the main port city of Toamasina on the east coast.
Colonized by seafarers from Borneo during pre-history, then Bantu and Arabs the large east African island situated on the maritime route to India was known to Europeans as the world's first and only pirate state - Libertalia. Even though mentioned in the old Sinbad the Sailor stories diamonds and precious stones have been overlooked by pirates, subsequent local and foreign slave traders. Later on French colonists opened the country's mineral coffers that contain chromite, gold, nickel, cobalt, bauxite and coal.
Keywords Madagascar nickel open pit
Sherritt's 14,300 ha mining property hosts two nickel-cobalt laterite deposit: Ambatovy and Analamay characterized by a 40 m average thickness and total reserves of 125Mt grading 1.04 percent nickel and 0.099 percent cobalt.
Sherritt partnered with important Asian powerhouses - Kores and Sumitomo - to bring the project to life. Separate pits will be developed for each of the deposits - hydraulic excavators and haulage trucks would be required to mine the soft lateritic ore. The average strip ratio over the 20.5 year mine life is about 1.3 :1 (waste and low grade : ore).
A pipeline will be used to transport the ore as slurry from the mine site to the proposed plant site near the port of Toamasina where pressure acid leaching would achieve nickel and cobalt extractions in excess of 95 percent.
The project is scheduled to begin production in 2010 and to produce 60,000 t of nickel per year.
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