Manono Property (and Kisengo, Kasanga) Katanga - An Historical Place for Tin

Property Details

Shamika’s property in the Manono territory consists of 200 mining blocks, covered by 2 licences #8609 and #8610, which represent a total area of 194 km2.

Infrastructures

Manono is one of the most developed areas of DRC. Old mining activities created a vast road, railway and electric distribution network.

General Description

Manono is a territory and a locality in the Province of North Katanga. The region is situated in the lower group of the Kibara belt and it is well known for its great reserves of cassiterite (which were estimated at 200,000 tons of tin ore in 1996), tantalite, columbite and wolframite.

The ores are in the form of pegmatite-hosted veins, easily accessible for opencast mining. Reserves are reported as being large, and the tantalum content of previous tin mine waste is believed to be recoverable. Older operations also suggest that the Manono region hosts one of the largest reserves of lithium in the world (30 M tons of spodumene at 6% lithium oxide).

Mining History

Belgian companies have done mining activities for tin and tantalite as early as 1932. However, significant activity started in the 60’s, when several local and international companies were involved in tin, tantalum and tungsten operations in this region. The largest tin producer in the DRC has been Congo-Etain (ex-Zairetain), which specialized in the mining of tin ore and other associated ores. Congo-Etain operations halted in 1995. Today, thousands of independent diggers are still working at the site.