News

April 18, 2008

Albidon Increases Projected Nickel Output At Munali, With First Production Just Weeks Away

By Alastair Ford

It’s taken just 22 months for the Munali nickel sulphide project in Zambia to move from its first published resource numbers to production. Strictly, production isn’t quite here yet, but according to Dale Rogers, managing director of Albidon, the owner and operator of Munali, “it’s literally just weeks away”. So how did the company manage to proceed so rapidly from resource definition to development, leaving others trailing in its wake?

It’s helpful of course that Zambia is mining friendly country, but there’s more to it than that. When it’s put to him that it might be because nothing went wrong, Dale Rogers raises a wry smile. “Things always go wrong”, he says. “It’s really how you cope with the problems. You’ve got to have done it before”. That’s one thing. This isn’t Dale’s first time. “I’ve done four or five open cuts before”, he explains. Another is that experience teaches what has to be done in sequence, and what can be...