MINING WELCOME 欢迎采矿 - The ASIA Miner

Philippines
First nickel from Acoje pilot plant
THE first nickel has been produced at ENK’s
pilot plant on Luzon Island in northern Philippines.
About 50kg of nickel hydroxide product
(NHP) was released from the filter press,
with initial assays showing the product contains
about 49% nickel and 4% iron.
The plant is about 250km north of Manila
and can produce about 200kg of NHP each
month using ion exchange to separate and
purify the nickel and cobalt. The initial NHP is
being sent to potential off-takers for evaluation.
It has wide market appeal due to significantly
low metal impurities.
ENK’s managing director Robert Gregory
says, “It is a magnificent effort by the Acoje
team to go from being on care and maintenance
last year to building and commissioning
the pilot plant 10 months later.”
ENK has two deposits on Luzon Island,
with a combined JORC estimate of 840,000
tonnes. The company hopes to use its lowcost
heap leach process to extract nickel laterites
at both the Acoje and Zambales
chromite deposits.
The company has demonstrated the percolation
and extraction of nickel at its largescale
demonstration plant at Çaldag in Turkey
with continuous operations over a three year
period. At this flagship project, ENK irrigates
the heaps with dilute sulphuric acid, producing
saleable mixed hydroxide product from
The pilot plant and research facility at ENK’s Acoje
Nickel Project.
the downstream precipitation plant. Recoveries
of 72% have been used in the Çaldag
bankable feasibility study (BFS) for both nickel
and cobalt. However, this mixed hydroxide
product (MHP) has a higher level of metal impurities
than the NHP produced from the pilot
plant. Test work on an atmospheric pressure
tank leach (ATL) in China is also continuing
with encouraging results to date. ATL is an alternative
leaching process to heap leaching
and the company hopes test work on this
system will help it to decide which leaching
process will be taken forward to the Acoje
BFS, which remains on track for completion
by June 2012.
ENK has started a comprehensive drilling
program on the nearby Zambales Chromite
Mining Corporation (ZCMC) tenement, which
is about 5km north of Acoje and 250km north
of Manila. It is owned 40% by ENK and 60%
by an associated entity, Montemina Resources
Corporation, and contains a JORC
inferred resource of 23.5 million tonnes of
nickel laterite ore at a grade of 1.18% nickel
and 0.05% cobalt.
The drill program of 255 holes totalling
about 3000 metres is designed to provide infill
drill data to upgrade the limonite estimate
to indicated status as well as provide sufficient
data to estimate an indicated resource
for the untested saprolite horizon. The company
expects the saprolite horizon will be
similar Acoje where the saprolite could make
up at least 50% of the total resource. Drilling
will continue until the end of the first quarter.
Joint venture for iron sands development
ASTRA Far East, a subsidiary of Astra Resources,
has signed a joint venture agreement
with Cagayan River Construction & Development
Corporation (CRCDC) to dredge, develop
and manage iron sands reserves in the
Cagayan River Delta and off-shore in northeast
Luzon. Geological studies and extensive sampling
suggest that at dredging depths of 14
metres, well above 9 billion tonnes of iron
sands are available with iron grades between
27 and 59% with an average of 46%.
The operation will be fully mechanized from
river/sea bed preparation through to suction
and discharge to barges. The project is expected
to be supervised by dredging experts.
Once dredged, the magnetite sands will need
to be washed and separated and production
of 60%-plus iron sands for export is expected
to result from 30 to 60% of the sands, depending
on the layers to be dredged.
The Astra Group will maintain a super-majority
of the joint venture entity in terms of equity
and profit share entitlement, and is
subject to Astra providing bond finance facilities
for development and operation.
Astra’s CEO Jaydeep Biswas says the
dredging, developmental and mining permits
currently allocated to CRCDC have now been
assigned to the benefit of the joint venture.
“Third party reports including geological studies
from CRCDC have been positive, indicating
that the area is an established producing
region that exports to nearby steel manufacturing
markets in China, Korea and Taiwan.
“CRCDC has signed a memorandum of
agreement with a provincial board in the
Province of Cagayan, allowing the dredging
of the delta with the responsibility to dispose
of the sand metal content and residue. The
unusually high grade iron content is disposable
through export and the residue is recyclable
into other construction uses.”
Astra’s managing director Silvana De Cianni
says, “For the specific purpose of disposing
the sandstone waste and residue, and marketing
the processed iron component of the
sands, a separate subsidiary with Astra at the
helm shall be incorporated in Hong Kong.”
The iron sands project is expected to supply
Astra with a significant potential export
business to some of the largest steel producing
markets, with a key advantage of the project
being its close proximity to China, the
world’s largest iron ore importer.
Additional geological work and feasibility
studies are being conducted in the area prior
to finalizing the funding from bond financiers.
January/February 2012 | ASIA Miner | 45