Australian mineral exploration company, Corazon Mining Limited has announced a high grade copper mineralisation from a recently completed surface rock-chip sampling program at the Mount Gilmore Cobalt-Copper-Gold Project in New South Wales Australia. Corazon has secured the right to earn up to 80% of the Mt Gilmore Cobalt-Copper-Gold Project from private company Providence Gold and Minerals Pty Ltd and is currently completing due diligence. The surface rock-chip sampling being reported was undertaken by Providence; these results have been received by Corazon and as such additional disclosure is required by the Company. Rock-Chip Sampling Program A total of 76 rock-chip samples…
Carrapateena in South Australia is shaping up as a major copper-gold project. In a statement last month, the proponent (OZ Minerals) made clear its commitment to the project. The ore-production rate is to be increased over what was previously planned; work on a decline will commence next month (mining will be underground); and final processing will take place at Whyalla, a regional city approximately 200 kilometres south of the minesite. All going well, construction will commence next year, with first production in 2019. Estimated capital cost: nearly A$1 billion (over US$700 million). OZ Minerals says that the choice of Whyalla…
The Government has approved two proposals from Rio Tinto to develop new deposits in the Pilbara, Western Australia, prolonging the life of existing mining operations. Announcing the approvals, State Development Minister Bill Marmion said the projects would deliver both short and long-term benefits for the State. "This is great news for the resources sector and will create opportunities for workers and contractors who are doing it tough in the current climate," Mr Marmion said. "These approvals will allow Rio Tinto to maintain its current level of production at two sites, Yandicoogina and West Angelas." The Minister has given approval for…
Mineral Resources of Perth is a mining company, but it is also a mining-services company, offering services in fields such as crushing and pipeline design and construction. The company is developing a new transport system for taking iron ore from its Iron Valley mine in the Pilbara region to Port Hedland for shipping. The system is an elevated rail line. Mineral Resources says that it occupies a “niche between heavy rail and conveyor”, adding that it is “significantly less capital intensive than traditional heavy-haul rail” (see further information). The system will be open to third-party users. It has the potential…
Sand mining on North Stradbroke Island is to substantially cease by 2019, with the Queensland Parliament voting in favour of the phase-out to allow the creation of new, sustainable jobs. The North Stradbroke Island Protection and Sustainability and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2015 to end sand mining was passed in the Queensland Parliament early today (Thursday). Environment Minister Dr Steven Miles said it was a good result for the environment and would ultimately open up new and exciting opportunities for the island community, leading to positive economic outcomes. “Today marks the start of a new chapter for North Stradbroke Island,”…
The company developing a greenfield coal project at present may appear to be brave, but at least three such projects are at an advanced planning stage in Australia. The first is Meteor Downs South in Queensland. This will be a small, low-cost operation, entailing open-cut mining and simple processing. It will produce thermal coal (used for electricity). Subject to final approval by the proponents (a Chinese company and a Japanese company), construction will commence by the end of the year. The second is a much larger, Chinese-driven project: Hillalong, also in Queensland. With an estimated capital cost of A$600 million,…
Doray Minerals Limited has entered into a farm-in Agreement with Rox Resources Limited to explore the highly prospective and underexplored Mount Fisher Gold Project which is located in the north-eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. The Mt Fisher farm-in represents another strategic exploration project for Doray, with a large contiguous land package over an underexplored greenstone belt with already identified gold mineralisation, and adds to its highly prospective Horse Well JV and Western Gawler farm-in in South Australia. Doray’s Managing Director, Allan Kelly, said Mount Fisher represented a very attractive exploration opportunity for Doray, given the many similarities with the multi-million…
Rio Tinto has announced it will explore the deployment of Heliogen’s breakthrough solar technology at the miner’s borates mine in Boron, California. Under a Memorandum of Understanding, Heliogen will deploy its proprietary, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology at the Boron operation, where it will use heat from the sun to generate and store carbon-free energy to power the mine’s industrial processes. The two companies will begin detailed planning and securing government permits for the project, with the aim of starting operations from 2022. The companies will also use the Boron installation to begin exploring the potential for deployments of Heliogen’s technology…
Lucapa Diamond Company Limited and its partner, the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho (GoL), have announced that the Mothae kimberlite mine expansion project in Lesotho in Southern Africa has been completed. The project is designed to increase nameplate capacity by 45 per cent from approximately 1.1 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to 1.6Mtpa. The processing plant was handed back to the production team after completion of the installation of the new scrubber bypass conveyor, the new primary jaw crusher and other associated upgrades. The project was completed on-time, within budget and with no safety incidents recorded. Lucapa advised that…
Rafaella Resources Limited has announced that Geotech Limited has completed Versatile Time-Domain Electromagnetic (VTEM Max) airborne EM surveying across the Midrim and Laforce nickel-copper-platinum-group elements (PGE) mineralised projects in Quebec, Canada. The VTEM Max, combined with Groundfloor Electromagnetic (GFEM), is an excellent system for locating discrete conductive anomalies as well as mapping lateral and vertical variations in resistivity. GFEM utilises an airborne EM transmitted with a set of surface-based receivers. The larger transmitter-receiver separation in Groundfloor EM over standard airborne techniques gives the ability to compute the step-response with sufficient accuracy to study extremely high conductivity targets that are commonly…
Rio Tinto will soon commence construction on a plant that will recover tellurium, a critical mineral used in solar panels, from copper refining at its Kennecott mine near Salt Lake City, Utah. Rio Tinto is investing $2.9 million to set up the plant, which will recover tellurium as a by-product of copper smelting, extracting a valuable mineral from waste streams. The plant will have the capacity to produce approximately 20 tonnes of tellurium per year. Rio Tinto expects to begin production of tellurium in the fourth quarter of 2021, creating a new North American supply chain for this critical mineral.…
Lucapa Diamond Company Limited and partners Empresa Nacional de Diamantes E.P. and Rosas & Petalas have announced the recovery of the 19th +100 carat diamond by Sociedade Mineira Do Lulo (SML) from the Lulo alluvial diamond mine in Angola. The 114 carat Type IIa D-colour white diamond is the third +100 carat diamond recovered from Mining Block 46 (MB46) in the last eight weeks [1]. The frequency of recovery of these stones, highlights the prospectivity of the Canguige catchment and adjacent priority kimberlites. To date, MB46 has averaged one +100 carat diamond recovered for every roughly 33,000 billion cubic metres…
Endeavour Mining has completed a positive pre-feasibility study (PFS) for both its Fetekro and Kalana gold projects in West Africa. The robust PFS results confirm that both projects justify moving forward to the definitive feasibility study (DFS) stage, which will now commence. President and CEO of Endeavour Mining, Sebastien de Montessus, said the studies confirm the compelling nature of Endeavours’ two most advanced projects and reinforce the company’s focus on organic growth. “Together with a number of earlier stage projects, Endeavour now has an attractive pipeline of opportunities, each of which will compete for capital with the goal of generating…
African lithium developer, Prospect Resources Ltd has announced a number of key developments at its flagship Arcadia lithium project in Zimbabwe after a detailed strategic review by management and a number of external third-party experts on the pathway to near-term production. The strategic review concluded that an initial smaller commercial-scale production facility at Arcadia utilising the existing feasibility study (FS) dense media separation (DMS) flowsheet will allow greater speed to market, higher technical certainty, significantly lower risk, and a reduced capital and operating-cost operation, when compared to inclusion of petalite flotation (in place of DMS) to increase the recovery of…
