LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Kenmare Resources announced on Monday that it has successfully landed the first of two new high-capacity dredges at its Moma Titanium Minerals Mine in northern Mozambique, marking a key milestone in a major upgrade to its largest mining plant, Wet Concentrator Plant A.
The London-listed firm said the dredges, fabricated by Royal IHC in the Netherlands, each weigh 1,160 tonnes and measure 62 metres in length.

They started their sea journey on 4 June and were anchored off the coast of Moma on 4 July.

The first dredge was landed on a specially constructed beach site near the mine on 18 July, with the second expected to arrive in the coming weeks.

"The safe beach landing of the first of the two new, high-capacity dredges represents a key milestone in the WCP A upgrade project," said chief operations officer Ben Baxter.

"It marks the start of an exciting quarter, which will see us begin commissioning of the dredges and upgraded plant, ahead of WCP A starting its transition to the Nataka ore zone in the fourth quarter."

The dredges would be transported to a dry staging pond using self-propelled modular transporters, a technique Kenmare previously employed during the 2020 relocation of WCP B.

There, they would be positioned alongside a new feed preparation module currently under assembly.

The upgrade was scheduled to begin in the third quarter and was expected to take three to four weeks.

Once completed, WCP A would transition from its current site at Namalope to the Nataka ore zone, which contains around 70% of Moma's nine billion tonnes of mineral resources.

The move was expected to sustain production for over two decades.

"While I was on site at Moma last week I was pleased to see the significant and safe progress being made with the upgrade work," Baxter added.

"The project continues to progress to plan and we will provide further updates to the market as we progressively de-risk this project during the remainder of the year."

At 1033 BST, shares in Kenmare Resources were up 1.23% at 330p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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