FYI Resources has appointed Orelogy Consulting as mining study manager for the Cadoux project, responsible for site operations design and scheduling of the high purity alumina (HPA) economic studies.
The consultant will take on early-stage analysis of mining at Cadoux, in Western Australia, while providing an overview of “mining requirements, scheduling, stockpiles, waste dumps, tailings storage facilities, and the associated logistics, capital requirements, key challenges and risks”, FYI said.
FYI’s Cadoux project has a total indicated and inferred resource base of 16.1 million tonnes at 11.76% Al, 0.51% Fe and 0.37% Ti. The geology of the kaolin deposit – shallow and flat lying – means it should be amenable to a low-cost, free digging mining operation, while the company’s kaolin to HPA process flowsheet has been successfully demonstrated with an HPA grade of 99.99% achieved, plus a mass HPA recovery of 97.2% attained.
Back in January, FYI employed GR Engineering Services to carry out a prefeasibility study on a processing facility able to treat 120,000 tonnes per year of kaolin ore for feed to a specially designed beneficiation and refining plant producing up to 10,000 t/y of HPA.
The deliverables for Orelogy’s mining study include:
- Electronic data package of the block model, topography, pit design(s)
- Cutoff grade determination, stockpile binning methodology
- ROM/stockpile layout
- Waste dumping strategy
- Rehandle strategy
- Rehabilitation strategy and closure plans
- Dewatering plans/issues
- Grade control plans
- Managing trafficability
- Cost estimates.
Orelogy has also been engaged to undertake tradeoff studies to determine the most appropriate fleet size for campaign mining, continuous mining and single versus double shift.
FYI’s managing direct Roland Hill said: “Orelogy have a good reputation in the industry for the mining phase of the study and we are delighted to have them on board and take responsibility for this aspect of the HPA strategy.”