Tag Archives: zinc

Metso and Ironbark Zinc sign equipment and services MoU for Citronen

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Ironbark Zinc and Metso have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in relation to a potential services and equipment contract for the Citronen zinc project in Greenland.

The ASX-listed company said the MoU sought to provide a platform to negotiate a commercial and binding agreement regarding services and equipment to be provided by the mining OEM for Citronen. The pact would enable Metso to commence engineering tasks preceding the completion of detailed engineering of processing equipment, including the provision of technical specifications for specific third-party supplied equipment, the company added.

Ironbark said it was also in discussions with other “highly regarded groups” regarding the supply of all components of the Citronen facility. “These companies have the potential to significantly assist with the overall project financing,” it said.

Metso has collaborated with Ironbark for several years and was instrumental in the preparation of the process flow sheet for the Citronen feasibility study, according to Ironbark.

“The two groups have maintained open communication during this time. A Metso technical representative visited the project site in August 2018,” the company added.

The future commercial agreement will contain and address the following matters:

  • Scope of Metso’s supply of services and equipment;
  • Price for Metso’s supply of services and equipment and payment terms, including a lump sum cost for remaining engineering works and project management scope;
  • Delivery terms;
  • Provision of process guarantee;
  • Metso compliance with Greenlandic Government requirements and guidelines as applicable.

Ironbark Managing Director, Jonathan Downes said: “We are delighted to have moved towards building on our long running relationship with Metso and the Citronen zinc project. Metso is exceptionally well regarded internationally and has direct experience with projects with very similar commodities, grades and scales to Citronen. Metso is also located in Scandinavia and therefore is well positioned to comply and assist with the training and employment obligations that Ironbark is operating under in Greenland.”

The wholly-owned Citronen project is held under a granted 30-year mining licence. The $514 million project envisages a production rate of 3.3 Mt/y with up to 200,000 t/y of zinc metal produced over 14 years.

In August, Ironbark signed an MoU with Byrnecut Offshore Pty that could see the contractor carry out mining, model underground mine costs and provide the fleet for the project.

Terrafame to go ahead with nickel-cobalt sulphate plant in Sotkamo, Finland

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Terrafame is to build a battery chemicals plant in Sotkamo, Finland, after finding the €240 million ($273 million) it needs to build the nickel-cobalt facility.

Terrafame, which took over the zinc-nickel-cobalt mine following the bankruptcy of former owner Talvivaara, said it intends to have the plant completed at the end of 2020 and commercial production started in 2021. Back in July, the company received permitting permission for the plant.

“The intention of the investment is the further processing of Terrafame’s current main product nickel-cobalt sulphide into nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate, used in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries,” Terrafame said.

The production capacity of the battery chemicals plant will be 170,000 t/y of nickel sulphate and 7,400 t/y of cobalt sulphate. This amount of nickel sulphate should prove to be enough to produce around 1 million/y electric vehicle batteries, with the cobalt sulphate enough to cover around 300,000/y.

Outotec is to supply the pressure leaching technology for the battery chemicals plant, with the contract including the planning of the leaching technology area, the supply of key equipment, and installation supervision and training services.

Pressure leaching is the first of the three main phases of the battery chemicals plant. During the pressure leaching, nickel-cobalt sulphide, which is Terrafame’s current main product, is first placed in a elutriating unit, where it is mixed with the process water. The slurry is then fed into an autoclave (ie a pressure leaching reactor, with a raised pressure and temperature) to produce a metal sulphate solution. After thickening and filtration, the solution is directed for further refining and finally for the production of battery chemicals.

Outotec has been involved in Terrafame’s battery chemicals plant project since the prefeasibility study phase. Construction of the electric vehicle battery chemicals plant is due to begin in the first half of 2019, with deliveries of pressure leaching technology estimated to begin in early 2020.

A funding package of $200 million related to the financing of the plant project was agreed by Terrafame, Finnish Minerals Group (previously Terrafame Group Ltd), Galena Asset Management, Trafigura Group and Sampo plc back in November 2017. In connection with the plant’s final investment decision, the parties have agreed on an additional funding package of approximately €100 million, Terrafame said.

Matti Hietanen, CEO of Finnish Minerals Group (which currently owns 77% of Terrafame and is wholly owned by the Finnish government), said: “This is a very important investment for Terrafame and its owners as well as the whole Finnish and European electric vehicle battery manufacturing value chain. Terrafame’s investment also improves the conditions for attracting more operators in the battery manufacturing value chain to Finland.”

Mika Lintilä, the Finnish Minister of Economic Affairs, said the Finnish state was willing to do its part in advancing the development of the Finnish battery production value chain “and to take forward the necessary efforts in research & development, operating conditions of businesses as well as investments”.

This week, BASF selected Harjavalta, Finland, as the first location for a battery materials production hub serving the European automotive market.

Pybar starts underground mining at Heron’s Woodlawn zinc project

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Pybar Mining Services has started up underground mining at Heron Resources’ Woodlawn zinc project in New South Wales, Australia, ahead of full commissioning by the end of the year.

The company entered into a four-year underground mining contract with Pybar in February and the contractor has now kicked off mining. This includes the ground support of box cut walls and the first portal blast of the decline.

Heron said the overall project, as of the end of August, was 73% complete, with earthworks substantially concluded, equipment purchasing at 98%, concrete almost complete and offsite fabrication 92% signed off. Sedgman is the EPC contractor.

Woodlawn is envisaged as a 1.5 Mt/y operation able to produce 40,000 t/y of zinc, 10,000 t/y of copper and 12,000 t/y of lead at steady-state production over a 9.3-year mine life. This is based on a reserve base of 2.8 Mt at 14% ZnEq from underground and 9.5 Mt at 6% ZnEq from reprocessed tailings.

The operation is set to use an IsaMill™ to treat the zinc-rich reclaimed tailings, as well as polymetallic primary ore in different processing modes. The 3 MW 10,000 IsaMill comes with an IsaCharger™ media delivery system, as well as commissioning services from Glencore Technology.

Heron’s Managing Director Wayne Taylor said: “Exploration over the last four years has defined a very high-grade, high-quality resource and reserve position, and the access which has now commenced will enable us to deliver underground ore into the processing plant in 2019.

“Once underground, our geological team will focus on further expanding the known mineralised positions to build upon the excellent and cost-effective work they have undertaken to date.

“Elsewhere on site, I am pleased to report that good progress continues to be made with all aspects of the build, and that works remain on schedule for the commissioning by the end of the year.”

CSA Global scopes out Myanmar Metals’ Bawdwin polymetallic project

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Myanmar Metals’ Baldwin polymetallic project looks like having at least 13 years of operating life in it, according to a scoping study carried out by CSA Global.

The study, which featured the China Pit as a starter operation, outlined a 1.8 Mt/y operation producing some 1.6 Mt of lead-silver-copper concentrate and 994,000 t of zinc concentrate over the life of mine could be built for $191 million in upfront capital.

Bawdwin, on the eastern side of Myanmar, has been mined by both open pit and underground means in the past, with over 100 years of documented operations providing Myanmar Metals and CSA Global with a good understanding of the geometry and continuity of the mineralised lodes, Myanmar Metals said. The ASX-listed company has a 51% participating interest in the project held through a contractual joint venture.

John Lamb, Executive Chairman and CEO of Myanmar Metals, said: “The China pit is the opening move in bringing the Bawdwin polymetallic province back into production.”

He added that this pit is likely to be the first of least three (Shan and Meingtha being the others) on the Bawdwin concession, followed by a “long-life underground mining operation”.

Myanmar Metals has proven up a 81.8 Mt indicated and inferred resource grading 4.8% Pb, 2.4% Zn, 0.24% Cu and 119 ppm Ag at the China Pit, but only 21 Mt of mineable material has been factored into this scoping study.

The company has already started its prefeasibility study on the project, with completion set for the March quarter. Myanmar Metals anticipates carrying out a further feasibility study in late 2019.

It has already signed up the likes of Battery Limits, Coffey International, CSA Global, Titeline Drilling and Valentis Services for these studies.

Former Talvivaara nickel mine on the rebound under Terrafame

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The former Talvivaara nickel mine in central Finland is back in the black and looking to new developments four years after the previous owner went bankrupt.

Operating under Terrafame, majority owned by the Finnish government through the Finnish Minerals Group, the mine is finally making good on its early promise.

On a site visit to the mine this week, part of the Finland Mine Safari programme for analysts and investors, CEO Joni Lukkaroinen talked about getting back to planned capacity of 35,000 t/y of nickel, 75,000 t/y of zinc, 1,400 t/y of cobalt and 5,000 t/y of copper.

The company hasn’t set out to change any major part of the process flowsheet to do this – it is still using a two-stage bioheapleaching process to produce a nickel-rich pregnant leach solution that is precipitated as sulphides in the plant – but it has refined the operations Talvivaara started up almost a decade ago.

On top of this, the company is looking to bolt on a hydrogen sulphide line that could see the company produce 170,000 t/y of nickel sulphate and 7,400 t/y of cobalt sulphate for the emerging electric vehicle battery market, in addition to 115,000 t/y of ammonium sulphate for fertilisers.

And, it also has a near-completed uranium plant that could potentially produce yellowcake in the medium term should it receive an environmental permit from the relevant authorities.

Talvivaara may be best known for the gypsum pond leak that occurred in late 2012 and saw nickel, uranium and other toxic metals go into the nearby environment, but even before this event led Talvivaara Sotkamo to eventual bankruptcy, it was struggling to achieve the production numbers it had previously forecast as the bioleaching process that justified mining the low-grade ore got the better of it.

Terrafame, which was formed in 2015 specifically to turn the operation around, has already surpassed the former owners’ production record and, earlier this year, started generating postive earnings.

EBITDA excluding work in progress (ore within the leaching pads) came in at a slim €1.6 million ($1.85 million) in the March quarter and more than doubled to €3.3 million in the most recent June quarter.

This is some change from the -€33.3 million and -€24.2 million the company posted in the same periods a year earlier.

Improved year-on-year metal prices have helped this recovery, but the company has also gone from producing 9,791 t and 4,787 t of zinc and nickel concentrate, respectively, in the March quarter of 2017, to a record 15,008 t of zinc and 6,421 t of nickel in the same quarter of 2018.

While these numbers are still some way off full capacity, they are significantly more than the circa-14,000 t per quarter Talvivaara produced at its peak.

There was at least one obvious change to the process Talvivaara set up when IM visited – Terrafame is now using Wirtgen surface miners to improve the material feed that is stacked and reclaimed from the leach pads and moved onto the metals plant – but the improvement in performance has been achieved through several tweaks, according to Lukkaroinen.

He told IM that the company has, among other things, put much more emphasis on improving the agglomeration of the ore, ensured the material on the leachpad is effectively aerated during both leaching stages and monitored the temperature of the exothermic process much more closely. The latter, in particular, is very important in judging success of the leaching.

This is really now starting to pay dividends during the 50 months, combined, the ore sits on the primary and secondary leach pads.

It has also given the company confidence to invest in a hydrogen sulphide plant that could see the company increase its exposure to the EV battery market.

As it stands, the company already sells around 50% of its nickel concentrate to this market, but the production of nickel and cobalt sulphates is likely to see the company retain more value for its product and provide further sales opportunities.

The fully-financed sulphide plant build will take some two years to construct, with start up, subject to regulatory approvals, planned for the second half of 2020. The company is just months away from awarding the major contracts for the construction.

The process, already proven on a commercial scale, will see nickel-cobalt sulphide from the existing production plant processed in an autoclave, before nickel cobalt and impurities are extracted. It will finally move on to a crystallisation phase where two separate sulphate products are produced.

The 170,000 t/y nickel capacity would make the company one of the biggest sulphate producers in the world.

Mining restarts at Century zinc operation in Queensland, Australia

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New Century Resources has started hydraulic mining at the Century zinc operation in Queensland, Australia, almost three years since its previous owner downed tools at the open pit.

The commencement of operations comes both on time and on budget, according to New Century. The company’s Restart Feasibility Study estimated a project able to produce 264,000t/y of zinc and 3 Moz/y of silver for a start-up cost of A$50 million ($36 million).

This is quite a turnaround for a mine that was thought extinct when MMG stopped processing ore back in early 2016.

The original Century mine started up in 1999 and produced and processed an average of 475,00 t/y of zinc concentrate and 50,000 t/y of lead concentrate over 16 years. This saw the product transferred in slurry form via a 304 km underground pipeline to Century’s port facility at Karumba.

New Century’s restart plan leverages much of the existing infrastructure at the operation, but initially involves reprocessing the mine’s old tailings for the first six-and-a-bit years.

Managing Director Patrick Walta said: “It is a fantastic achievement by the New Century team and our business partners to deliver the restart of operations at Century both on time and budget.

“We are now focused on the next phase of Century development, ramping up operations to become one of the world’s top zinc producers.”

Back in May, Downer EDI Ltd and its joint venture partner Waanyi, were awarded a life of mine contract by New Century Resources to provide mining services at the operation.

Vedanta’s Gamsberg zinc project edges closer to commercial production

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Vedanta Resources’ latest quarterly report indicates the zinc market could be only a month away from welcoming a new mine to its quarters.

In the company’s first quarter report (to end-June), it said the Gamsberg zinc project, in South Africa’s Northern Cape province, was on course to reach commercial production in September.

Almost 100% of pre-stripping, with 67 million tonnes of waste excavation, had been completed to the end of June, while 500,000 t of ore had been stockpiled ahead of the plant feed.

The crusher has been commissioned and the crushed ore stockpile is currently being built in readiness for commissioning of the milling and flotation area, Vedanta said. The water and power infrastructure (38 km water pipeline with pumping and storage, and 20 km powerlines with a main receiving substation) has been commissioned and construction of the high density polyethylene-lined tailings storage facility has been completed and is ready to receive tailings.

All of this progress means the company is in line to start commercial production from the plant next month, with a nine-to-12 month ramp up expected to full production of 250,000 t per year of zinc concentrate.

Gamsberg has a large reserve and resource of 214 million tonnes, with an average grade of between 6-6.5%, and an estimated life of mine (LOM) of 30 years. In phase one, which has a LOM of 13 years, 4 Mt/y of ore will be produced from Gamsberg’s open pit.

There are further phase two and phase three expansions planned at Grasberg, which could see the mine’s capacity go to 450,000 t/y and 600,000 t/y, respectively, of zinc concentrate.

ELB Engineering of South Africa is the EPC contractor for Gamsberg.

Ironbark Zinc signs up Byrnecut for Citronen underground contract mining

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Greenland-focused Ironbark Zinc has signed a memorandum of understanding with Byrnecut Offshore Pty that could see the contractor carry out mining, model underground mine costs and provide the fleet for the Citronen zinc-lead project.

The contract has been signed as Ironbark carries out work on removing key items from the project’s capital cost estimates. A definitive feasibility study last year pegged this at $514 million.

Ironbark said the Byrnecut agreement provides it with “extensive international experience in underground hard-rock mechanised mining”.

It said the companies would work towards a more detailed cost based commercial agreement operating under agreed margins through each project stage, and will also encompass agreed performance margins. As part of the agreement, Byrnecut is also expected to hold the debt and security of the equipment for the underground mining fleet.

Ironbark is in discussions with other groups for the remaining disciplines, or to support the project, that have the potential to collectively and significantly assist with the overall project financing.

The $514 million project envisages a production rate of 3.3 million tonnes per year with up to 200,000 t/y of zinc metal produced over a mine life of 14 years.

Located in northern Greenland, Byrnecut’s first-hand knowledge of the skills necessary to overcome remote location logistics, language barriers and upskilling the national workforce will prove key to development and operating success.

Ironbark Managing Director Jonathan Downes said: “Byrnecut has the capacity to provide Ironbark with an immediate ‘bolt-on’ underground mining expertise that will assist Ironbark as we move from financing to active mining.”