The latest issue of International Mining Project News is now available. This fortnightly project watch is a great way of keeping up to date with your peers – other mining companies, other consultants or other engineering companies. These issues build into a global mine project overview. If you are a supplier – it is full of potential sales leads. Contact [email protected] for more details and a free trial. There are reports on 35 prefeasibility studies, 16 feasibility studies, 23 projects in development, one new mine that has gone into production, six existing mines that are expanding, eight merger and acquisition announcements and many new appointments to new positions. There are 30 gold projects, 18 copper, 10 silver, nine coal, six zinc, five iron ore, graphie and rare earth projects, four projects in phosphate and molybdenum, three lead, two tin, potash, tungsten and uranium projects, and one project each on magnetite, PGMs, cobalt, mineral sands, lithium, diamonds and manganese.
News this issue includes confirmation of the Ovoot project as the second largest coking coal reserve in Mongolia with the Probable Coal Reserve increased by 41 Mt Run of Mine (ROM) to 219Mt ROM at 2% moisture on an as received basis (arb). The life of mine is extended by five years to 20 years and the marketable Coking Coal Reserve is increased by 33 Mt to 180 Mt at a product moisture of 8.5%.Construction at Red Chris is well underway with completion of the excavation in the process plant area, and the start of concrete placement on September 24. The access road from the plant area to the tailings impoundment area (TIA) was completed in September, enabling haulage to the process plant of concrete aggregates produced from a gravel source located within the TIA. Red Chris is on schedule for plant start-up in 2014 from this copper/gold porphyry deposit. Mineable Reserves amount to 301.549 Mt at 0.359% Cu and 0.274 g/t Au. It is to be a conventional shovel and truck open pit mine starting with two pits (Main and East zones) and ultimately merging into one pit. Average mining rate of about 30 Mt/y and a maximum of about 40 Mt/y. Processing is to be conventional crushing, grinding and flotation to produce copper and gold concentrate for shipment overseas through the Port of Stewart.
Oyu Tolgoi has signed a binding agreement with a Chinese power company for the supply of electricity to the nearly-completed copper and gold mine in Mongolia. Within the next few weeks, it will start a seven-week commissioning of the ore-processing equipment. First concentrate production will follow within one month and the commencement of commercial production is expected three to five months thereafter. Rio Tinto Copper Chief Executive Andrew Harding: “This agreement means we are on track to bring the first phase into production in the first half of 2013. When fully developed it will be a top-five copper producer with significant gold production.
Vale has obtained the operation license (LO) for the Salobo project (100,000 t/y of copper in concentrate) located in Pará state, in Brazil. Investments in Salobo total $2.507 billion. Vale is now investing in its expansion – Salobo II – that will come on-stream in the first half of 2014 with expected capex of $1.707 billion, increasing production capacity to 200,000 t/y of copper in concentrate. Salobo has 1,112 Mt of Proven and Probable reserves, with an average grade of 0.69% Cu and 0.43 g/t Au.
The Jambreiro Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS) demonstrates strong returns from Centaurus’ first planned iron ore project in Brazil, with key highlights including an A$140M post-tax NPV8 and 33% IRR at life-of-mine average mine gate domestic iron ore price of A$47/t. The plan is a 2 Mt/y operation delivering a high grade (+65% Fe), low impurity sinter blend concentrate product into the domestic steel industry in southeast Brazil over an initial mine life of nine years.
The feasibility study on Avalon Rare Metals’ Nechalacho rare earth element project, Thor Lake NWT, Canada is being prepared by SNC-Lavalin and remains on schedule for completion in the second quarter of calendar 2013. Key recent developments include completion of successful pilot plant campaigns, the summer definition drilling program and technical sessions for the environmental assessment process. The target date for production start up remains late 2016 with initial product sales anticipated for 2017.
Dacian Gold’s IPO closed early and oversubscribed, raising A$20 million to advance its 100% owned Western Australian gold assets. Mount Morgans is the flagship project with JORC Code compliant Mineral Resources of 842,000 oz at an average grade of 3.1 g/t Au which includes Ore Reserves of 136,000 oz at an average 6.2 g/t Au.
Altona Energy is engaging Parsons Brinckerhoff’s Global Mining Business group as Project Management Contractor to oversee the Arckaringa coal mine development and the design-build activities for Altona’s 30,000 barrel/d Clean Energy Coal to Liquids Project in South Australia.
Economic assessment results indicate the acquisition of the Discovery Zone Mineral Resource has the potential to add up to $140 million in NPV, increased from $100 million, to the Viscaria project in Sweden. By extending the proposed mine life to nine years and increasing the production rate to 3.5 Mt/y, the Discovery Zone will increase the overall project potential NPV to $342 million (at $3.25/lb Cu). Processing Cu-Fe mineralisation from the Discovery Zone in conjunction with the A Zone and D Zone Mineral Resources at Viscaria, will increase copper production to 28,800 t/y and iron production to 963,000 t/y.
Northern Graphite says it “is the only graphite company to have completed a bankable feasibility study and has a large flake, high purity, scalable deposit that is located close to infrastructure with very competitive operating costs.”