The Tawana Hotazel Mine is located about 80 km Northwest of Kuruman, and approximately 1 km south-east of the town of Hotazel, in the South African Kalahari Basin.
Approximately 78% of the workforce are core contractors with 93% of the workforce coming from the mines’ neighbouring Northern Cape communities.
The mine produces approximately 45Kt of high-grade manganese ore per month. The ore is trucked from site to the Transnet-owned Lohatlha siding for transportation by rail for bulk export out of Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) harbour for China.
The Tawana Hotazel Mining Right (THM) covers 145.1 ha over portions of two farms within the Joe Morolong Local Municipality in the Northern Cape Province; Hotazel 280 and York 279. Theareaholds iron and iron-bearing minerals including hematite, goethite, specularite, and manganese and manganese bearing minerals.
The property incorporates the historical Hotazel Manganese Mine (HMM) which stopped production in 1989, with the mining rights transferred from South32 to Tawana Hotazel Mining in 2022.
Surface infrastructure includes the opencast pit (the historical HMM void and further expansion of the opencast footprint), in-pit waste dumps, vehicle yard, workshop, access and haul roads, offices, stores, processing plant, product stockpile area, run of mine pad, refuel bay and water management infrastructure.
All current plans for the project specifically exclude underground mining.
Port of Ngqura
Tawana makes use of the manganese terminal at Transnet’s new deep-see Port of Ngqura, located 20 km northeast of Gqeberha
The Port of Ngqura is South Africa’s newest port and the deepest container port. The port’s state-of-the-art manganese ore-loading facility has increased the country’s manganese export capacity from 5.5Mtpa available at Gqeberha to 16Mtpa.
