FIELD REPORT

Congo Investments SAS

(CIS) - Likasi
A VINMART COMPANY
11°07'16.3"S
26°41'59.5"E
(Location of the Office, NOT the installation)

Site Visit hosted by:

Sunil Gohil, Assistant General Manager
Report prepared by Jodie Wu
CC:
Krunal Vasani, S4A Director
Sneha Chug, Strategy Director of Vinmart
Group
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
1. Introduction..........................................................................
2. Objective..............................................................................
3. Challenges............................................................................
4. Observations.........................................................................
5. Recommendations..................................................................
6. Pictures................................................................................
 1. INTRODUCTION

Vinmart Group is a family-run business that is a conglomerate of

about 22 companies across various industries from beverage, to
engineering services, to manufacturing, to farming, to recycling,
and to mining. Each of their companies has at least two common
shareholders, but there is no ownership of one company over the
other.

Nearly all of Vinmart’s activities start with a need, where they

outsource, and then they realize they can do things much more
affordably in-house, such as borehole drilling and now solarization
of many of their industries.

This site report highlights our visit to Congo Investments SAS (CIS)
of the Vinmart Group, which is a limestone site with two crushing
plants. The site is about 7 years old, but the mining location was
only taken over three years ago (2020) by CIS.

They currently process over 95,000 tons of limestone a month,

where they crush the limestone into three types: (1) 0-10mm, (2)
10-25mm, and (3) 25-50mm, which are used in different
applications. Limestone is used in cement, lime powder, and mineral
extraction, just to name a few.

This mining location has an expected life of 60 years, and the two
mining sites in this photo, which are 1.2km apart, will be connected
once the mine has been fully exploited.

They have 250 Congolese on site, with a lot of experts who have
been brought in to manage this location. This site includes over 50
vehicles that are being managed by a garage team of about 15-20
people, who ensure all vehicles, generators, and machines are
running at all times.

This is a 24/7 location with night shifts and day shifts for their staff.
They have tower lights run by gensets to ensure smooth operation
at night.

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 2. OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this site visit was to get a feel for the location, as
S4A is planning to install a 1MW RTC solar system by the end of the
year.

3. CHALLENGES

This location is 100% off the grid. They currently use 25,000L of
fuel/week, with the fuel being brought in by 2 fuel trucks each
week.

Crushing
Plant

1.2 km

Crushing
Plant

Layout of the site

The two crushing plants are approximately 3km apart, and they
each are being run by 1250kVA generators, which are carrying a
load of about 500W for each of the crushers. At each location, they
have a back-up generator in case one goes down, meaning there
are a total of 4x1250kVA generators.

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 4. OBSERVATIONS

From visiting this site, it is clear that 1MW RTC would be needed for
each crushing facility, so this first project is actually only half of the
site’s potential. It seems if a 1MW RTC system were to be built,
some analysis would need to be done as to whether it makes sense
to have 1MW site near each of the crushing facilities, or if 3km of
power distribution is more price efficient.

One aspect to be aware of is much of the land that was driven on

will eventually be mined as the pit will eventually be connected, so
any infrastructure would need to be built outside the planned
extraction zone.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS

The unit economics make sense. Major priority is to finalize how to

work with S4A.

6. PICTURES

This area was tremendously remote, with dusty roads and no

people to be seen.

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 Just outside gate were a few businessmen selling foods.

The Crushing Machine and genset nearby

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 Separating out the three types of limestone

One of the Mining Pits. It will not go deeper, but rather will expand
the 1.2km to the other mining pit.

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 Congo Investments SAS had made some contributions to the
surrounding village with boreholes and solar water pumping.

“AOB relating to format of the report to be discussed, data to be

captured for the initial meeting. This report is a working document
to be used for each new opportunity and will be an active document
until the lead is disqualified or if it turns into a contract.