The latest issue of International Mining Project News, out today, has reports on 16 prefeasibility studies, 4 feasibility studies, 18 projects in development, four new mines that have gone into production, six existing mines that are expanding, seven merger and acquisition announcements and many new appointments to new positions. The report covers 36 gold projects, 15 copper, 12 silver projects, 9 iron ore, seven coal projects, four uranium, rare earths, and zinc projects, three tungsten and nickel projects, two projects on graphite, molybdenum, lithium, diamonds and lead, and one project each on anorthosite, manganese, cobalt, sulphur, niobium, tin, potash, vanadium, titanium, phosphate, mineral sands, ferro alloys and PGMs. Contact [email protected] for a trial.
Lundin Mininghas announced the achievement of commercial production at the Eagle Mine, a high-grade nickel-copper mine located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. The milestone was reached within two months of start-up and well before the target of Quarter 1, 2015.
Paul Conibear, President and CEO commented, “The team at Eagle Mine has done an excellent job in accelerating the ramp up and delivering commercial operations ahead of expectations. Going forward, the Eagle Mine will be significant to the earnings and cash flow of Lundin Mining, and a major employer and economic contributor in northern Michigan. We wish to thank all employees, contractors and the community for their efforts in bringing the mine into commercial production safely, and sooner than expected.”
Aurelia Metals Limited (AMI) has announced that the Hera gold-zinc-lead mine was formally opened yesterday by the NSW Minister for Resources and Energy, Anthony Roberts MP and Kevin Humphries MP, Member for Barwon. The opening was attended by Aurelia employees, Directors, shareholders, project partners and members of Nymagee community. In his address to the attendees, Anthony Wehby, Chairman of Aurelia Metals commented, “We are delighted to be opening of Stage one of the Hera-Nymagee project today. Hera reflects the aspirations, sweat and financial investment of a great many people and it is a privilege to be part of this occasion”
AMI has completed the first shipment of 5,734 t of zinc-lead concentrate from the Hera Mine. The shipment is on schedule and above specifications grading 56% Pb+Zn. The concentrate will be sold to Aurelia’s offtake partner Glencore. The company is scheduled to be shipping concentrate approximately every 6 weeks.
Aurelia Metals Managing Director Rimas Kairaitis commented, “We are very pleased with our maiden concentrate shipment which represents another important milestone for the Hera project. ”
Rare Element Resources, a mineral resources company advancing development of the Bear Lodge Critical Rare Earth project, has announced that it has successfully completed bench-scale testing on enhancements to its existing patent-pending thorium extraction technology that now allows for the selective precipitation of 100% of the thorium while also removing 85% of the cerium, the lowest value rare earth element.
This advancement significantly reduces the concentrate mass of material subject to further separation, thereby reducing costs, and results in an upgraded product that is nearly 40% by weight critical rare earths (CREE)1 and 99.999% pure rare earth oxide (REO). In the second stage, a two-contact solvent extraction (SX) process is used to separate the contained rare earths into heavy rare earths (HREE) and light rare earths (LREE) to simplify the separation process and further reduce costs.
Testing was undertaken using concentrates generated from the large-scale pilot plant work performed on the company’s proprietary recovery process and conducted by SGS Lakefield, Canada, and Hazen Research, Colorado, under the direction of Dr. Henry Kasaini, Rare Element Resources’ Director of Science & Technology.
“Process advancements on our proprietary recovery process have significantly improved our product and technology breakthroughs have brought us successfully through the first step of elemental separation,” stated Jaye Pickarts, CEO. “Our decision to capture additional value for our shareholders by investigating elemental separation has led to a significant improvement in our thorium removal process that now allows us to also remove the majority of the cerium in a single-contact SX step. By removing this lower value rare earth, we can reduce the mass that goes through separation, significantly reducing costs. We then use SX to achieve high separation factors for heavy and light rare earths. This represents a significant first step and will give us a great amount of flexibility, as we continue to investigate the next steps of separation and how to capture more value by generating the products that our customers’ need.”
China Gold International Resources has reported that test production runs at the company’s new additional 30,000 t/d heap leaching and processing system at Chang Shan Hao gold mine have been successfully completed and the results are in line with expectations. The company commenced commercial production on the facilities in October 2014.
In 2014, the company has gradually increased its mining rate from 30,000 t/d to 60,000 t/d to meet the newly expanded crushing capacity. The company conducted extensive test runs on the new heap leaching and processing system. Successful production of approximately 6,241 oz and 13,185 oz of gold was achieved in August and September respectively on the new facilities. October output is expected to be higher.
The CSH Mine’s gold production is expected to nearly double from its 2013 level of 131,418 oz/y to about 260,000 oz/y by 2016. As previously announced, the company is expected to produce about 165,000 oz of gold in 2014.
Bing Liu, the CEO and Executive Director of the company, commented, “We are very content with rapid execution of our expansion plans and with successful testing results on the new facilities at CSH. CSH mine has made a tremendous progress to put the new facilities into commercial production. I would like to assure our board and shareholders that the company is making significant efforts to fulfill our previously released production guidance.”
