Small amounts of gold are produced by artisanal miners. As of 2006, Pan African Resources plc of the United Kingdom was considering the development of a mine at the Fair Bride deposit on its Manica gold project. The mine would produce an average of 2,600 kg/yr during an expected mine life of between 8 and 9 years. Pan African planned to start drilling in the first quarter of 2007. Some illegal mining took place in the village of Lupilichi in the 1990s. Iron and steel In October 2006, Mittal Steel South Africa Ltd. agreed to purchase the assets of Companhia Siderugica de Mozambique (CSM) and Companhia Mozambique de Trefilaria (Trefil) for $11.45 million. Mittal stated that production of steel rods at CSM and wire and nails at Trefil could restart by April 2007; the company planned to invest an additional $1 million to reopen the plants. Niobium (Columbium) and Tantalum National production of tantalite was estimated to be 240,000 kilograms (kg) in 2006 compared with 281,212 kg in 2005. Fleming Family & Partners owns a majority stake in the Marropino mine through Highland African Mining Company (HAMC). The company was unable to produce at Marropino until the fourth quarter of 2006 because of financial and technical problems. It closed the mine in 2013, saying that the ore with the most tantalum had already been processed, and what remained was both more radioactive and deeper, making production more expensive. Also, no port in Mozambique is certified to handle the level of radioactivity it found, so the company was obliged to send its product by truck to Walvis Bay in Namibia. It had been losing $3 US for every tonne processed. HAMC also holds a license to produce tantalite from the Morrua mine, which had been shut down since the 1980s. If the Morrua Mine were reopened, it could produce as much as 230,000 kilograms per year (kg/yr) of tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5). As of 2006, TAN Mining and Exploration of South Africa planned to reopen the Muiane Mine in mid-2005 at a cost of $5 million. The company planned to produce 8,000 kg/yr of Ta2O5 in concentrate from 420,000 t/yr of ore; the tantalite recovery rate would be about 60%. Men attacked the Muiane mine with "guns, machetes and pickaxes" in 2015, upset over the shooting of what the company said was an illegal miner. By then Pacific Wildcat had acquired the