In addition to its mountainous topography, Rwanda is also known to be among the world’s home of 3T’s deposits and other different minerals. Having a long mineral history, the first mineral exploration in Rwanda commenced in the 1930_s and since then, the industry has been growing both professionally and economically in general.

Following various explorations, Rwanda was found to have deposits of wolfram, cassiterite, gold, Colombo-tantalite, lithium, beryl, rare earth minerals, and various gemstones.

Since its establishment in 2017, Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board has been collaborating with the mining companies by providing technical assistance through assisting mines in choosing and maintaining suitable mining and mineral processing techniques.

The following techniques/methods of Mining are mainly found in Rwanda:

1. Underground Mining Methods.

Rwanda’s ore deposits are mainly known to be found in narrow veins that are found in steep and deep depths, underground mining methods are employed in the sector. These methods include:

• Sublevel stoping where the ore is blasted from different levels of elevation usually connected by raises; and removed from one level at the bottom of the mine.
• Square Set stopping where a set of interlocking timbers is put in place forming a grid wedged against the rock. New timber sets are added to fill the void as the extraction continues usually in an upward direction.
• Stope and Pillar where stopes are cut into the ore body, leaving big pillars in place to support the hanging wall of the mine.

2. Surface Mining methods

On the other hand, some other ore deposits are found near the surface on an extended area which leads to employing surface mining methods. These include:

• Open cast/Pit Mining which extracts minerals from an open pit in the ground.

• Stripping mining which is mostly used in the extraction of Peat seams in the south and West part of the country.
• Quarrying is mostly used to extract various industrial minerals such as limestone, clay, and granite.

After the extraction, minerals in Rwanda are processed before being exported to global buyers. Due to the available resources available and the ore body characteristics, gravity separation methods are the ones widely used in the country. With the differing financial means of mining companies, some opt for artisanal techniques whereas others combine them with mechanized techniques.

The following gravity separation techniques are used in Rwanda:

1. Panning involves separating the valuable minerals (Cassiterite, Coltan, Wolfram, and Gold) from the gangue materials due to their difference in density on a medium-sized pan using water.

2. Ground sluicing where a straight and consistent channel is created with regular slow spots created by levels which later create an eddy and backflow of water allowing valuable minerals to settle out and be separated from the gangue.

3. Separation by shaking tables. These are rectangular-shaped tables with ribbed decks with a water film flowing on them. Low-density particles mostly known as tailings are transported in the fast-moving film, causing fine, high-density particles known as valuable minerals to fall into the beds behind rifles.

In addition to gravity separation, Magnetic separation is also used in Rwanda in case mixed ores such as cassiterite mixed with coltan are presented. The magnetic separator will use their difference in magnetic susceptibility to separate them. Moreover, this method is also used to remove metallic byproducts such as Iron from the concentrate.