Kombat Mine

COPPER MINE IN NAMIBIA

The Kombat Mine is one of the most significant copper mines in Namibia. Mining operations originally commenced in 1962, producing until 2008, and with total output reaching 12.46 million tonnes of ore grading 2.6 percent copper on average.

The mine has over USD $150 million worth of usable infrastructure in place. That includes a 1,100 tonne/day mill, an 800m shaft with two other vertical shafts, extensive underground workings, tailings facility, ramp systems, mine buildings and concentrator. Its close proximity to the port of Walvis Bay and to one of only five commercial-grade smelters in Africa (located in the town of Tsumeb) is an additional benefit to the project.

COPPER PRODUCTION

Planned production started from the open pit in 2023, followed by underground mining in 2024, when higher-grade underground ore begins to be recovered and as planned upgrades to crushing and milling are incorporated.

GEOLOGY AND MINERALIZATION

The Kombat Mine is located in the Otavi Mountainland on the Northern Platform Margin of the Damara Orogenic Belt. The Platform consists of a thick sequence of Otavi Group carbonates deposited upon Nosib and Basement rocks, during the late Proterozoic to early Phanerozoic periods (500-550 Million years ago).

The Kombat deposits are situated on the northern flank of the canoe-shaped Otavi Valley Syncline, a double-plunging syncline with the northern limb dipping at 20-75° to the south. The southern limb is overturned and also south-dipping. Copper, lead, and silver mineralized zones are focused along the northern limb of the syncline, generally steep and “pendant” from monoclinal flexures (“rolls”). In addition, metal concentrations increase in proximity to northeast striking faults and east-northeast penetrative deformation with shearing, net-vein fractures and jointing. Also, there are additional concentrations in breccias (hydraulic and sedimentary) and in areas of increased oolites/pisolites and strong calcitization.

Generally, alteration precedes ore deposition with de-colourizing of dolostone from the outward movement of argillaceous and carbonaceous inclusions, followed by bleaching and final calcitization and Mn alteration. Two hundred to 300 metre wide zones of calcitization flank ore lenses. Normally, with a fine to medium-grained, saccaroidal texture. Silicification is not as prominent as calcitization but contributes locally to mineralization (as noted in core). Fe-Mn is often associated with intense calcitization in areas proximal to ore and may also contribute to mineralization.

The country rock above the orebodies is sheared and fractured into “roll structures”. A relation between the orebodies and the feldspathic sandstone of the Kombat Formation is also indicated. In addition, the ore lenses abut against the contact and hang like pendants beneath the flexures as depicted in the figure above.

Orebodies are steep in orientation and transgressive to stratigraphy. With depth, the massive sulphides horsetail and merge into thready stringers until they become disseminated in calcitized ones of net-vein fractures.

The Kombat orebodies are interpreted to have formed as a result of the release of both CO2 and CH4 from the Mulden shales. This converted the anhydrite (in the dolostones) to calcite releasing SO4 into the brines. The CO2 and S reacted with downward migrating oxidizing groundwater producing sulphuric acid that ate its way up through the last four hundred metres of the rotated fold-thrust fracture systems in the carbonates, forming a hypogene karst system. Unconsolidated sand was subsequently forced through the fracture system forming sandstones.