Premier African 'pleased with progress' at Tungsten mine in Zimbabwe

Premier African Minerals Ltd (LON:PREM) has told investors it has now hired a mining contractor for upgrade and development work at the RHA tungsten mine in Zimbabwe.

African Mining and Exploration (Afmine) has been hired as principal and will be responsible for upgrades, development of underground operations and the reestablishment of open pit mining.

CEO George Roach tells Proactive: ''We brought them on board because the previous upgrades to the shaft that we completed earlier in the year were limited. Looking at where we need to take the RHA operation we needed to increase the capacity from underground and RHA will eventually become an underground mine.''

''There's a fair amount of the underground development that's already completed. It's progressing fairly well ... and I'm quite looking forward to seeing this system in operation.''

At RHA the plan is to achieve a rate of 16,000 tonnes per month from underground, and no less than 12,000 tonnes of ore per month to the run-of-mine (ROM) pad.