INTERNATIONAL MINING PROJECT NEWS issue 132 is the usual important and comprehensive fortnightly report on global projects, with some 50 pages of updates. It has new information on 18 prefeasibility, 22 feasibility studies, news of 26 projects in development, four that have achieved production, nine expansions and news of a 11 mergers, acquisitions or IPOs. There are 34 reports on projects in gold, 14 in copper, 11 in silver, nine of each in iron ore and coal, five in uranium, four of each in zinc, diamonds and rare earths, three of each in potash, two of each in lead, phosphate, vanadium, tungsten, base metals, lithium, and manganese and one of each in polymetallic, aluminium, rutile, zircon, limestone, nickel, cobalt, mineral sands and tin. Barrick Gold has made two significant gold discoveries on its 100%-owned Cortez property in Nevada. These two discoveries, known as Red Hill and Goldrush, are located on highly prospective ground, 6 km southeast of the Cortez Hills mine and 24 km southeast of the Pipeline mine. Snowden is currently working on a project with Sierra Rutile Ltd (SRL), which operates the Sierra Rutile heavy mineral sand mining operation in Sierra Leone. The scope of the project is to prepare an optimised strategic life of mine plan for SRL’s world class rutile project near the Imperri Hills. SRL mines with a large bucket line dredge from the Lanti deposit (at 1,000 t/h) to produce 60,000 to 70,000 t of rutile per year. SRL aims to produce 200,000 t of rutile per year.
AuRico Gold and Northgate Minerals have entered into a definitive acquisition agreement to create a new leading intermediate gold producer. The new company will have five operating gold mines, a sixth mine targeting production in 2012 and three gold development projects in Mexico, Canada, and Australia.
Baja Mining has commenced underground mining of copper-cobalt-zinc ore at its Boleo mine located near Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur, Mexico. This is the first stage of an 18 month program, ramping up to full underground production in March 2013. The company also provided a project update.
Nautilus Minerals is to raise approximately $100 million through a private placement of common shares to fund the development of its first project, Solwara 1, in the Bismarck Sea of Papua New Guinea.
Rockwell Diamonds has approved the capital investment to install high throughput (or bulk) X-ray technology at Saxendrift, in South Africa. High throughput X-ray plants are the next significant advancement in diamond processing technology. These plants effectively concentrate and recover diamonds in one single, efficient, cost effective and secure step.
Lundin has completed a feasibility study on the zinc-copper rich Lombador orebodies located immediately to the north-east of the existing Neves-Corvo mine workings in Portugal. This great mine on the Iberian Pyrite belt goes from strength to strength.
Selwyn Resources is much in the news having announced results of the ScoZinc PEA for the restart of the ScoZinc zinc-lead project in Nova Scotia, Canada and has announced the first drill results from the recent drilling of the XY West deposit at the Selwyn project, Yukon.
Tirex Resources has signed a Definitive Agreement with Ekin Maden to commence commercial production of copper and gold from six areas of the Mirdita District located in Albania.
US Gold has announced exploration results from its Palmarito deposit, part of the El Gallo complex in Sinaloa State, Mexico, where Phase 1 mining is planned for mid-2012. Drill results continue to show excellent potential for open pit resource growth, in addition to higher silver grades.
OceanaGold has provided a progress update on construction activities at the Didipio Project located in northern Luzon, Philippines.
Cortona Resources has announced the NSW Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) has approved the company’s application to develop its flagship Dargues Reef Gold Mine in NSW, clearing the way for construction of Australia’s newest gold mine to proceed.
Australian coal group, African Energy Resources says it expects to achieve a 1 Mt/y thermal coal start-up operation in Botswana by 2013 as a first stage to a much larger mining operation four times that size.
And also in Botswana, Aviva expects to complete within six months the key environmental impact assessment of its strategic coal holding in the southast. Chief Executive Officer, Lindsay Reed, said he expected the study
to be completed early in the new calendar year as the company pushed towards developing a 10 Mt/y project.
Mechel, one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, announced reaching full production capacity at the Nerungrinskaya processing plant of Yakutugol Holding Co and updates on the construction of Elga Coal Complex. In July, Yakutugol Holding’s Nerungrinskaya washing plant processed 783,000 t of coking coal and produced 536,000 t of concentrate and 197,000 t of middlings. This is the highest monthly result the plant achieved in its 26-year history.
Formation Metals’ 100% owned subsidiary, Formation Capital Corp, has signed an agreement for underground mining operations at its 100% owned Idaho Cobalt Project (ICP).
All this and much, much more in the August 12 issue of International Mining Project News….
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