FURA’s Mozambique ruby mine is in Montepuez district in the province of Cabo Delgado, approximately 200 kilometres from international airport of Pemba. Today, FURA holds 9 ruby licenses in the main ruby-producing belt covering 58,091.57 hectares of land.
Rubies were found in Mozambique as early as in the 14th century. Yet, it was only after the country gained independence from Portugal rule in 1975 that ruby mining started in the 1990s in the Niassa province. Niassa, being a protected sanctuary, was prohibited from any sort of commercial mining activity by the Mozambique government.
However, with discovery of second deposit near Montepuez district (Cabo Delgado province), rubies from Mozambique started surfacing in the market in 2010-11, encouraging full-scale ruby mining in the region.
For centuries Burma, now Myanmar, was the leading source of rubies. But Burma’s mines have been running out, and sanctions have squeezed supply. Over the past decade Mozambican mines have been able to bring this scarcity to an end. However, FURA’s Mozambican mine which started producing as early as in 2021, are promising to become a key future source of ruby supply.
We started our journey in Mozambique in 2017 by acquiring four (4) exploration licenses in the main ruby-producing belt in the Montepuez district of Cabo Delgado. The consolidation continued by acquiring further ruby licenses from Mustang Resources, and GemRock. Today, we hold approximately 581 Square kilometres in the main ruby-producing belt and eleven 9 ruby mining licenses. We completed all the regulatory approval for the commencement of the bulk sampling by the end of February 2020. We own 100% interest in the operating Ruby licenses.
We also undertook various geological work within these licenses, including the drilling of 16,091 metres followed by the bulk sampling. Post the interpretation of the geological data, a total of 20 Square kilometre area was delineated for the commercial production where rubies are currently mined.
We completed the construction of the 60 ton per hour bulk sampling plant by the end of January 2020. Since then, we have scaled up our operation in Mozambique with the commissioning of the two wash plants (with a combined output of 300 ton per hour) having a combined capacity of 1.8million tons of Ore. The appointment of a mining contractor with a total capacity of 5 million tons of mining has supported the plant with the constant availability of Ore. We have also drawn a complete framework for our Corporate Social Responsibility projects in line with our corporate philosophy of taking the community together. The launch of the Napula Primary School even before our first auction, followed by projects in agriculture, farming and education are some of the initiatives we have undertaken in just two years of starting commercial production at the mine.
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