Australia's junior explorers - The ASIA Miner

Australian Junior Explorers
CONSTRUCTION OF LUCKY BAY PORT UNDER WAY
CONSTRUCTION of IronClad Mining’s Lucky
Bay port facility is under way , after the company
received approval from the South Australian
government and finalized its detailed
design. The project is a unique concept aimed
at cutting road and rail transport distance from
mine to port by about 350km.
Significant works, including an 80 metr e
channel extension, loading dock, and acoustic
mounds and barriers, are required at the existing
harbour. Initially, IronClad will freight its iron
ore 156km by road to Lucky Bay then load it
onto barges to take to vessels anchored offshore
in the Spencer Gulf.
IronClad will develop its floating port 10km
offshore at Lucky Bay, to be serviced by two
company-owned self propelled barges. Construction
of the first of these barges in China is
40% complete and the 57 metre-long vessel is
expected to be finished by August. The port is
expected to take three years to complete but
will become a much closer alter native to the
current option of Port Adelaide which is almost
500km from the mine site. It’s expected the facility
will open up a new multi-user shipping
avenue for South Australian exporters.
A recent capital injection of $12.1 million from
the successful conversion of 16.2 million options
as well as a $13 million investment fr om
strategic share placements will be used to fund
the construction costs. Part of the placement
includes an offtake agreement with New Page
Investments, which secures up to 50% of the
iron ore produced from the Wilcherry Hill mine
52 | ASIA Miner | July/August 2011
for the first four years of production. New Page
must also pay Ir onClad 95% of the agr eed
value of the iron ore on each ship from the Luck
Bay port within 30 days of its departure.
Wilcherry Hill is 105km west of South Australia’s
steel industry capital of Whyalla, and
about 40km north of Kimba in the norther n
Eyre Peninsula. It covers four tenements over
an area of almost 1000sqkm. Access into the
project area is via the Eyre Highway to Kimba
and then graded service r oads and pastoral
station tracks. IronClad produced its first ship-
ment of iron ore from the Wilcherry Hill magnetite
project in February this year, with a target of
producing up to one million tonnes of premium
grade direct shipping ore by January 2013. It
also began construction of a dry magnetic separation
(DMS) plant.
Annual production is planned to ramp up rapidly
at the pr oject, to become a 12 million
tonne operation by 2015, when production will
be shifted to the company’s nearby Hercules
deposit which hosts a JORC inferred resource
of 198 million tonnes.
STROMBERG RARE EARTH RECOVERIES IMPROVE
TUC Resources has incr eased heavy rar e
earth element (HREE) recoveries by 10% at
its flagship Str omberg prospect within the
Daly project in the Northern Territory. Metallurgical
test work results have confirmed recoveries
of up to 85% from leach tests on the
HREE rich clays found at the deposit.
Two composite samples were tested and
the 85% recovery was achieved using leaching
by sulphuric acid after an initial caustic
wash using sodium hydroxide.
TUC’s managing director Ian Bamborough
says work indicates that r ecovery from
lower grade material is comparable to hig-
A schematic of the gravity separation circuit proposed by IronClad Mining.
her grade with a 0.2% to 0.4% total rar e
earth oxide (TREO) composite giving a 77%
recovery of total rare earth elements (TREE).
“It appears that the caustic wash improves
the amenability of the mineralized material
to the leach process.”
TUC says leaching of the HREE dir ectly
into solution can result in a more direct processing
route to an HREE intermediate/carbonate
material, which would allow the
company to generate mor e competitively
valued product, when compared to other
concentration methods.
The leach tests also extracted up to 93% of
uranium mineralization, possibly creating a secondary
revenue stream for the project, whilst
simultaneously serving to boost marketability
and exportability of any futur e HREE product.
The company says while these results are impressive,
test work is still at an early stage.
“To date 70% recovery of yttrium has been
achieved with a respectable acid consumption
of 371kg/tonne. Ef forts are now being
made to improve the efficiency of the process
including reducing reagent consumption by
testing variation in leach times, acid to mineralized
material mixes, and leach temperature,”
says Ian Bamborough.