International Mining’s fortnightly global project watch is a great way of keeping up to date with your peers – other mining companies, other consultants or other engineering companies. If you are a supplier – it is full of potential sales leads. Highlights of today’s issue – the usual important and comprehensive fortnightly report on global projects, with some 60 pages of updates – include Teck and Rio Tinto expansions. There is also news of Perkoa in Burkina Faso, Hambledon Mining in Kazakhstan, new in-situ gold recovery process – read onNorthgate Minerals has a new, NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate for the YD West zone at Young-Davidson in northern Ontario. YD West is the most recent gold zone discovery located just west of the currently known 2.8 Moz reserve. The Young-Davidson mine is scheduled to commence production in early 2012.
GVK Group will be coming on board with Hancock Coal as partners to assist with the development of both the Alpha Coal and Kevin’s Corner projects which are leading the development of the Galilee Basin in Central West Queensland.
Perseus Mining has made good progress towards the development of the Sissingue gold deposit on its Tengrela Gold Project in northern Côte d’Ivoire.
Monadelphous Group has secured a major construction contract at the Hope Downs 4 Iron Ore Project for Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting.
Yukon-Nevada Gold has approved the start of mining at Starvation Canyon located in the southern end of its wholly-owned gold production Jerritt Canyon property in Nevada, USA. It is anticipated that the daily production at Starvation Canyon will be 300 t/d initially, ramping up to 600 t/d during the first six months of production.
Ausenco has been awarded a Create phase (EPCM) contract to deliver the development plan for the potential re-start of Teck Resources’ Quintette coal mine in northern British Columbia.
Blackthorn Resources has received an investment proposal from JV partner Glencore International (50.1%) to enhance the business case for the Perkoa project in Burkina Faso. The changes in the investment proposal include modifying the process plant configuration to include separate Ag/Pb concentrate and Zn concentrate product streams.
Hambledon Mining, the Kazakhstan gold mining and development company has entered into an agreement for the purchase of 100% of Akmola Gold, subject to certain government waivers and consents. The vendors are Central Asian Gold and Yerkin Sadykov, who each have a beneficial interest of 50% in Akmola Gold.
Crocodile Gold has extracted the first underground ore from the Cosmo underground mine on schedule and on budget.
Selwyn Resources has announced a new, upgraded mineral resource estimate for the Selwyn lead/zinc project in the Yukon that has been completed to NI 43-101 standards.
Resource Generation has completed detailed mining fleet and engineering designs for its planned Boikarabelo mine in the Waterberg region of South Africa, where there are probable reserves of 744.8 Mt of coal on 35% of the tenements controlled by the company. These designs will enable the company to fast track construction once funding is secured.
Victory Nickel’s Board of Directors has approved the development of the 100%-owned Minago sulphide nickel mine located on the Thomson Nickel Belt in central Manitoba.
Alcyone Resources is on track to ramp-up silver production at its 100%-owned Texas Silver & Polymetallic Project in southeast Queensland to a targeted annualised rate of 1.5 – 2.0 Moz/y following excellent progress in the first four weeks of wet commissioning of the upgraded Twin Hills processing facility.
Silver Lake Resources has commenced ore production at the Wombola Dam open pit part of its Mount Monger Operations. Silver Lake is targeting to increase production from the Mount Monger Operations to 200,000 oz/y by 2014 via mining from multiple underground and open pit ore sources.
Kazzinc has successfully commissioned the copper smelter at its New Metallurgy project, which significantly increases production of finished metals and further improves Kazzinc’s environmental performance through the development and integration of copper, zinc, lead and acid plants. The new metallurgical complex enables Kazzinc to maximise the recovery of individual metals like copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver.
Kimberley Metals has released a production update of the Mineral Hill Mine, located 65 km north of Condobolin in central-western New South Wales. Processing of copper ore through the refurbished process plant at Mineral Hill commenced in mid-July.
MDM Engineering has been awarded the Gold Fields Ghana contract for its Tarkwa project in Ghana, which will include the provision of services for the CIL Crushing Plant Expansion Project.
Sierra Rutile has received an initial report from the consortium of consultants headed by the Snowden Group, and including CPG Resources – Mineral Technologies and Titan Salvage detailing the key initial findings of the strategic review announced on 11 May 2011. The consultants’ study focused on the expansion of SRL to an annualised rutile production rate of 200,000 t/y, and a pro-rata increase in ilmenite production.
Rio Tinto has increased its copper mineral resources by 20 Mt to 106 Mt at its wholly-owned Kennecott Utah Copper Bingham Canyon mine.
The 40-year old mill at Highland Valley Copper will be modernised and will extend the life of the mill to match the expected mine life. The project is also expected to increase mill throughput by approximately 10% and copper recoveries by about 2%. Construction will begin immediately, and the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.
Full details on all these projects and information on and contacts for many, many more are to be found in the September 23 issue of International Mining Project News….
To receive the full report, subscriptions to this service can be registered and paid for on-line (SUBSCRIBE TO IM PROJECT NEWS BUTTTON), or contact [email protected] for a free trial copy.
