Latest issue of International Mining Project News available (August 1): Several nickel projects are featured in this issue with noteworthy news, despite the metal’s currently falling value – but that’s mining timing! One project to be featured is Mirabela Nickel’s Santa Rita project in Brazil, which is currently in development having now been engineered and constructed for a 6.4 Mt/y throughput capacity. Gladstone Pacific has also been busy with its Gladstone nickel project in Australia, having just signed a memorandum of understanding with China Metallurgical construction for the development of the project. It is also moving along the high pressure acid leach plant and metal refinery, loadout/shipping facilities and ore importation facilities at the port of Gladstone. This issue also features the joint venture between Panoramic Resources and Thundelarra Explorations and their Copernicus nickel project in Australia.
Another metal that appears many times in this issue is uranium, with five projects in various stages being reported on. One such project is Energy Metals’ Bigrlyi uranium and vanadium project in the Northern Territory and recently released details of its scoping study, with huge increases in its uranium production and an increase of four years for mine life. It also features news of a joint venture between Mintails and DRD Gold, who are planning to exploit significant gold bearing tailings materials on the East Rand near Johannesburg. A progress update on Strathmore Minerals’ George-Ver property, Gas Hills uranium district is also featured, with updates on their mine permitting applications and recent drilling results from the project.
As usual diamond mines are not too far away from project news, with one interesting mention being De Beers and its decision to open a record three new diamond mines this year; two in Canada and one in South Africa. This is a move used to replace production from mines it has sold off in South Africa and also to counter declining Russian production. This the company feels will contribute significantly to its bottom-line, whilst this year they have set targets of producing about 50 Mct, more or less flat on its total production of 51.1 Mct last year.