pd266-Nov18-mag-web

Smith shows heart for nickel

Carey Smith has had more than the Carey Smith His conservative price forecast for aver-
price of nickel on his mind these last age nickel prices in 2019 is $US6.50-7/lb,
three years. nickel in batteries by 2022 has it growing at but he wouldn’t be surprised if a range of
about 15% and 25% CAGR, but no-one re- $US7.50-8/lb was hit.
At the time of the Australian Nickel Con- ally knows,” Smith said.
ference, it was almost 36 months to the day What has caught him off-guard though has
the Alto Capital senior analyst underwent a “By 2022, [the battery market] is likely been the tremendous success of Indonesia’s
heart transplant. to reach 225,000t nickel consumption per ban on the export of unprocessed ore.
annum which is roughly about 10% of the
The procedure has been a success, with market. At those levels the battery market “Any way you look at it, the export ban
Smith fit enough to compete – and excel – will start to have an impact on the nickel that Indonesia introduced in 2014 has been
in the Australian Transplant Games on the price. We are getting much closer to that a huge success for Indonesia and they have
Gold Coast in early October. and it is a matter of time before the renew- had a huge capital investment. I must admit
able battery market has an impact on the I was a bit of a disbeliever in the early days,
Just as Smith has been able to bounce nickel price.” but it has certainly proved to be a very, very
back, it appears so too have sections of smart position from the Indonesians and
the nickel sector with 2018 being the first The growing thematic around nickel us- that has worked really well,” Smith said.
time in six years that the majority of global age in batteries driving the EV market
nickel production has been economic on a means Smith doesn’t expect sub-$US5/lb In 2020, Indonesia is forecast to pro-
cash basis. or $US11,000/t prices in the future. duce roughly the same amount of nickel
pig iron as China is at about 350,000t of
Stainless steel consumption remains the contained nickel.
driver for nickel demand and will continue
to prop up industry for some time yet. How- “Indonesia is by far the new force in the
ever, there are strong winds of change ex- stainless steel market. It has actually be-
pected in the next five years. come the largest exporter of stainless steel
in 2018 and is likely to be the fourth largest
“About 60-80,000t or 4% of nickel [pro- producer of stainless steel in 2019 behind
duction] was used in the battery market China, Japan and India; that is a very im-
last year. It is not big at this stage, but it is pressive effort from a standing start five
growing. The lithium-ion battery market has years ago.”
been growing at about 25% [CAGR] per an-
num from 2000 and that is extremely fast – Mark Andrews
and likely to continue. Most forecasts for

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AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 51

NICKEL REVIEW

Comet lands mining lease

Comet Minerals Ltd expects to be im- lot of the oil and gas is shipped from.” as an “unprecedented new style of nickel
minently granted a mining lease for its Proposed Stage 1 production from Ti- deposit” where small, near-pure native
Titan nickel project in Nigeria. nickel balls appear in a massive felsic peg-
tan, comprising just 15% of the potentially matite.
As director Stephen Davis and consult- mineralised regolith across the entire 20sq
ant geochemist Louisa Lawrance pre- km tenement, is forecast to deliver annual Up to 94% nickel has been reported to
sented the Comet story to the Australian gross revenue of $US202 million, or $US8 occur in some nickel balls found at Titan.
Nickel Conference, the final community billion over a 41-year mine life, assuming an
agreement was being signed off, paving output of 15,000 tpa nickel grading 1.5%. Lawrance said the 1.5-3% nickel grade
the way for the Hugh Morgan-led company was extremely conservative.
to be issued a 25-year mining lease with a Titan made headlines in September
25-year renewal option. 2016 when the extraordinary discovery of “I say conservatively because not only
nickel-rich balls was presented for the first are the large balls very likely being re-
Formal environmental approval is also time at Africa Down Under, with delegates moved by the panners, but also we’ve had
understood to be imminent. mesmerised by what Lawrance described Gecko in Victoria look at these nickel balls
and they say the sizes grade down to just
Davis said the company continued to re- Louisa Lawrance a few microns which of course would be
ceive strong support from Nigerian authori- very difficult to capture in a panned con-
ties – including as high as the presidential centrate,” she said.
office – to develop Titan, 200km east of
Abuja. Lawrance said the Titan discovery was
rewriting the geology textbook as to what
“The Nigerian Government is asking was possible for nickel mineralisation.
whether this is an opportunity to start a
stainless steel industry,” Davis said. “I think I can safely say that Titan is in a
class of its own because it contains prima-
“We’re only 15km from a freight rail junc- ry/native nickel metal which, to date, only
tion which gives us access to two ports. small amounts occur in some ultramafic
Freight is using that rail every day, so they situations, but nothing of the grade we see
are good viable lines, and the Government at Titan,” she said.
is expanding the rail network and soon we’ll
have access to Warri port which is where a – Michael Washbourne

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Page 52 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

Horizon expands for Black Mountain

With one deal completed and another Ashley Zumwalt our global metal portfolio. Everything has
frustrated, it appears private equity been nickel sulphides in WA focused but
group Black Mountain Metals Ltd is recon- fresh water, water midstream and frac that is not the only opportunity we are look-
sidering its Kambalda consolidation strat- sand in the US. While head office remains ing at. We are interested in copper and
egy. in Fort Worth, Texas, the metals group will other base metals.”
operate out of Perth where an office has
Black Mountain chief operating officer recently been secured. On Lanfranchi, Zumwalt said she hoped
Ashley Zumwalt made the group’s inten- exploration would begin before the end of
tions very clear when she arrived in Aus- The metals team includes former Still- the year.
tralia earlier this year, declaring the group water Mining chief executive Mick McMul-
was confident it could reinvigorate the len as senior adviser, Declan Franzmann “We are engaged in a full desktop re-
Kambalda nickel belt. as vice president operations, Peter Wade view of all data which has come with the
as vice president engineering and former mine to see where we can add value by
Its first move was to propose a tie-up Jubilee Mines, Xstrata Nickel and WMC investing in exploration, as has been done
with Poseidon Nickel Ltd but when the jun- geologist Graham Leaver as vice presi- in the past,” she said.
ior rebuffed Black Mountain’s advanced dent exploration.
(largely thanks to Andrew Forrest’s white “We are optimistic about the ability of
knight, Squadron Resources Ltd), the US- “We are actively adding people to the our team to do that and we see prospectiv-
based group began looking elsewhere. puzzle in the Perth office and we contin- ity in targets for up and down extension of
ue to look for talented people to join our the Lower Schmitz [orebody].”
It eventually struck agreement with Pan- team,” Zumwalt said. “The team will tackle
oramic Resources Ltd to acquire the moth- Despite the setback with Poseidon,
balled Lanfranchi nickel mine in Kambalda Black Mountain will continue to pursue
for $15 million. nickel opportunities although laterite pro-
jects appear off the menu.
However, with its consolidation progress
stalled, Black Mountain appears intent on “It is likely that laterites are not in our fu-
spreading its horizons. ture plans. Not all nickel deposits are cre-
ated equally for batteries and at current
The company is part of the wider Black prices, it is not economic to convert Class
Mountain group which has already de- 2 nickel into Class 1.”
ployed more than $US1 billion on assets
in oil and gas, salt water disposal wells, – Dominic Piper

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AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 53

NICKEL REVIEW

Poseidon rebalances

Ahostile takeover averted, Poseidon $69 million in the bank and a trio of assets was very much a technical success based
Nickel Ltd is now back at the develop- at which to deploy it. on quite detailed rethinking of the struc-
ment planning table to investigate the best tural geology. The prospect is 400m blind
way of switching each of its three West The most advanced in the portfolio ap- from surface and 300m offset through a
Australian nickel assets back on. pears Black Swan where a feasibility study fault. The fault was originally considered a
completed in July showed $56.7 million recumbent fold but the geos believe it is a
Poseidon rebuffed efforts by US-backed could get operations restarted at a rate of later intrusion so this could be potentially
private equity group Black Mountain Met- 8,000 tpa nickel-in-concentrate. That rate 50,000t of nickel.”
als to take a controlling stake in the com- would deliver $288 million in revenue over
pany thanks to the support of Andrew three years for estimated net cash flow of Results released in October delivered
Forrest’s Squadron Resources Ltd and $60.2 million. further technical encouragement with hits
a recent $69 million capital raising. The of 2.9m @ 1.08%, 1.54m @ 1.82% and
end-product was a Poseidon register with Poseidon is now reviewing the feasibility 0.47m @ 4.36% nickel reported by Posei-
Black Mountain as the largest shareholder study with mine life extensions likely to be don.
at 20% (plus a $US17.5 million convertible a key focus.
note) and Squadron at 18%. Rodriguez said the existing infrastruc-
“The geologists looked at previous drill- ture around Lake Johnston – including
The exercise left Poseidon with a healthy ing results and saw that LionOre had hit the existing box-cut and decline, 1.5 mtpa
42m @ 1.2% nickel below the pit but par- plant and 280-person village – made Abi
Michael Rodriguez allel to the high-grade Silver Swan under- Rose a compelling opportunity.
ground deposit. Our focus will be initially
infill drilling and then step-out drilling be- The situation is similar at Windarra,
low the actual pit,” Poseidon chief operat- where existing infrastructure and the long
ing officer Michael Rodriguez said. operating history makes for a potentially
low-cost start-up.
At Lake Johnston, Poseidon is pinning
its exploration hopes on the Abi Rose “We found the Cerberus prospect and
discovery, found in 2016 via a 10.48m @ there are multiple targets all along the ul-
3.2% nickel intercept. tramafic belt,” Rodriguez said.

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Page 54 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

Wingellina search heats up again

Metals X Ltd has reopened discussions Warren Hallam Wingellina hosts a reserve of 168mt @
with potential strategic partners for 0.93% nickel and 0.07% cobalt which sup-
Australia’s largest undeveloped nickel-co- Hallam said. ports a 40-year mine life producing 40,000
balt-scandium project. “We went a long way last time in the cycle tpa nickel and 3,000 tpa cobalt.

Finding $2.5 billion to develop Wingellina, and we had some consortiums together… Metals X has confirmed it can produce
on the West Australian side of the South but obviously the nickel price collapsed and a range of product types from sulphates to
Australia and Northern Territory borders, we just put it all on hold. Since then, we’ve mixed sulphides, carbonates and hydrox-
has been and continues to be the biggest put some material through an alternative ides. Hallam believes this variety will influ-
hurdle for Metals X to overcome. process in Korea and that all works well. ence which strategic partners ultimately
sign on.
Classed as development-ready, Wingel- “Our view is that the industry will deter-
lina has a mining agreement signed with mine the next project that comes online and “We can produce all the high-grade co-
the Native Title holders, plus EPA approval when they’re ready for that and that will ob- balt from the various pits which are coinci-
and water access secured. viously be when some stocks drop off fur- dental with the high-grade nickel, we can
ther and also when there is the demand for produce all the products, but it’s going to
Metals X negotiated with several poten- nickel and for the capital to be spent.” come down to who the strategic partners
tial suitors for Wingellina during the last are,” he said.
nickel boom, but those talks were put on
hold when the price collapsed. “The bottom line is it requires $2.5 billion,
even though it might have an NPV of $3.5
Since then the company has tested a billion, so we need deeper pockets.”
number of alternative technologies to see
if it can lower the capex of the HPAL-mod- With $100 million in the bank from con-
elled project and Metals X managing direc- tinuous operations at the Nifty copper mine
tor Warren Hallam believes now is the time in WA’s Paterson province and the Renison
to re-engage with the strategic partners tin JV in Tasmania, Metals X has a handy
who previously expressed interest. war chest to leverage its development plans
for Wingellina.
“We’ve done all the high-grade options,
we’ve looked at the technologies and we’re – Michael Washbourne
back talking to all the strategic partners,”

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AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 55

NICKEL REVIEW Q&A

Paydirt editor Dominic Piper quizzed
WA Minister of Mines Bill Johnston
on the importance of the nickel
industry to the State. Johnston also
took questions from the floor

Q: Minister, can you please explain lithium story, we are now calling it our nickel sulphate. We are also interested
the importance of the nickel Future Battery Initiative. The plan is in talking to Independence [Group NL]
sector to the West Australian to look at the whole value-chain for about what they are doing. We have
batteries and as you know there is supported the investment from Tianqi
A economy? more nickel in a lithium-ion battery than and Albermale and their partners and
: One of the good things about there is lithium. We see this as being an perhaps other players in the lithium
nickel is that it is more labour important part of the story of Western space. We have some money to support
Australia’s position in the battery sector. the infrastructure development for these
intensive in capital investment. When We have all of the materials, not just industrial parks. We have established
you look at iron ore – our dominant lithium, but all the materials that can the Industrial Land Authority and will
commodity – that immense investment go into a battery, which is important to work with companies to make sure that
creates lots of jobs, but not that much emphasise when we are developing a land is ready. It is silly that even though
per investment dollar. The nickel business case for companies to invest industrial parks have been declared
industry, like gold, is much more here in Western Australia. for 30 or 40 years they haven’t had the
employment intense so it’s critical for environmental clearance. We are very
Western Australia that we have a variety Q: How will the Government support keen to make sure we can take that
of materials to extract and that we can nickel miners in making the step bottleneck out of the way and we are
maximise employment, which is why towards nickel sulphate and ready for people to invest.
nickel is very important to us for that
reason. A pre-cursor material production? Q: Do you get the sense that Asian
: I’d love to say that the Government producers of EVs and batteries
Q: How do you see nickel sitting is able to co-invest, but are looking at Western Australia
into your Government’s
batteries strategy in coming unfortunately we have to recover the A as a key source of minerals?
budget in Western Australia that was : There is no question that Western
A years? left in a terrible state by the former Australia is seen as a key supplier
: We are very excited about the government so we don’t have the
opportunities for future battery resources to do that. But, we are in a of materials and I note the investment by
position to work with companies with POSCO in Pilbara Minerals’ [Ltd] lithium
demand. The Premier [Mark McGowan] land and access and making sure that project, but there are other opportunities
has established a task force and asked infrastructure is in place to support to supply into Asia. In respect of nickel,
me to chair that. We have just finished investment. We are very pleased to see it has been dominated by stainless steel
that piece of work and are almost ready BHP Ltd investing in the Nickel West production which is obviously critical
to make that public. The great thing refinery and upgrading it to produce to the economic development of our
about batteries is that it is not just a

Page 56 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

northern neighbours. I imagine that there the Prime Ministership of Australia because that is great to contribute
will continue to be demand for stainless to the discussion. What we have tried to do
steel in China and beyond in our region. A Malcolm Turnbull? with the Future Battery Industry strategy
But, again, the opportunity in the battery : The Premier [Mark McGowan] is to examine all of those reports and talk
space is going to be very important as has been to China twice in direct with people in the industry. We have
well. a plan now and that will be finalised in
the 18 months that we have been in the very next short period of time and we
Q: What is the Government office and the Treasurer [Ben Wyatt] expect to make an announcement before
doing to help the discovery is there right now. When the Premier Christmas. Clearly, the Government of
of a new generation of nickel made his visit this year after all the Western Australia would expect to lead the
issues that were caused by the Federal marketing of the opportunity in Western
A mines to be developed? Government, Mark McGowan was able Australia and clearly that is one of the
: We have been able to to meet all the senior representatives outcomes of the Future Battery Industry
secure the EIS in to the of the Chinese Government and all the strategy. We are very keen to work with all
senior representatives of the state- the industry partners – CCI, CME, AMEC –
Budget, with $5 million going into owned enterprises. He was treated all of these organisations are going to have
the Geological Survey of Western was with enormous respect in Beijing an important role to play. This is a genuine
Australia to do pre-competitive data and we took that as a sign that there opportunity for Western Australia, but it is not
acquisition. That is then all made is understanding in the Chinese straightforward. There are some genuine
publicly available, so people can bureaucracy of the difference between risks and headwinds for us so we will need
develop their targeting by using the state and federal government. We to play it carefully and we will also need the
publicly available data. We are trying work very hard on maintaining direct support of the Australian Government and I
to make as much of the State as relationships with all the senior economic am in regular contact with Matt Canavan the
transparent as possible for people decision-makers in China and we will Federal Minister for Resources and we have
looking at where these minerals continue to do that. The Premier has a good relationship. I hope that we can do
might be. On the other side there is an expectation of all ministers that we that with the support of industry and people
$5 million a year for co-investment visit China once a year. I will be there in this room as well.
on exploration drilling. We are in April 2019, so we do maintain a very
trying to target that towards new strong link officially and unofficially with Q: John Goodlad from Hartleys
terrain, with 80% of the State still Chinese decision-makers. asked: Do you have any
underexplored, even after 100 years comments about labour
of mining projects. There are so Q: What role does China have to
many opportunities to look for new play in the future battery strategy? A shortages in the State?
material and we are here to try and Will there be direct investment : Firstly, John it is good to see
work with you to try and discover the investors here because it is not just
next big opportunity. A from China?
: Tianqi has already invested $1.5 the miners we need to talk to, it is also the
Q: What is happening within billion in their facility in Kwinana and marshals of capital as well because that
government to refine the is going to be very important to us. One
they are the first ones to go down the path of the problems we have is that when the
A approvals process? of a lithium hydroxide plant. Tianqi – with construction phase of the mining projects
: We are very determined to keep partner Albermale at Greenbushes – is finished many of those workers went
to our timeframes. We have a currently concluding their first expansion back to where they came from – the East
of that project in capacity and they have Coast rather than overseas. I would say to
target of 80% of approvals within the already announced an investment to double industry, that if labour is a critical element
timeframe and we are achieving that. capacity on that doubled capacity. There’s of your investment then you should pay
We are always investigating how we can very strong investment in batteries from critical attention to it. There are stories
simplify the procedures and, of course, China and we’d expect that to continue. Of about companies not investing in training
the mining amendment bill that was course, there are a number of geopolitical and that is one of the reasons why we
introduced in 2014 but didn’t get through issues about why we might see investment extended the Construction Industry Training
the parliament, we are examining that in the battery minerals industry in Western levies to the resources sector. That is going
and what elements we can reintroduce Australia for supply chains outside of China to give us a considerable amount of money
to simplify approvals. The Environment for a whole range of reasons that we don’t to invest in training to make sure we have
Minister announced that there are care about, but we might benefit from. The the skilled labour that the industry requires.
additional resources in the EPA to fact that a Chinese company is in investing The other thing is making sure that we
make sure that the day’s work can stay in projects here in Western Australia sell the message that jobs in our industry
on track because there has been a instead of doing further investment in their are high paid, high value, high skilled and
doubling of the applications for approval. own jurisdiction is an example of those therefore when parents are helping their
We need additional resources in there geopolitical forces at work. kids make a decision about what university
to make sure there is no slowdown in courses to do that they make the decision
the approvals. We are very conscious Q: Gary Frampton from BHP to come to mining. The Kalgoorlie School
of the need to have speedy responses asked: With a tremendous of Mines has vacant positions, including
to applications. DMIRS is achieving its amount of CRC’s and scholarship positions, which is crazy
targets and we are carefully monitoring organisations emerging and all because kids are missing out on those
that to see where we can simplify it. doing a great job for industry, opportunities. We have to sell the message
who is the Government backing that this is a strong industry, it has a bright
Q: Legend Mining Ltd’s managing so the industry isn’t pulled in future, that it is not the end of the boom, it is
director Mark Wilson asked: the start of the production phase and there
What is the Government doing to A different directions? are so many jobs available for the long-
repair the relationship with China : Firstly I am pleased that so many term future of our industry.
after it has been fractured under organisations have put reports out

about the battery opportunities in Western

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 57

NICKEL REVIEW

GME leaps into action

Now armed with a technically robust project finance and permitting, as well as Peter Sullivan
PFS, GME Resources Ltd is heading demand for nickel-cobalt products.
to the market in search of a strategic part- forward with really what is a technically
ner for its NiWest nickel-cobalt project, The PFS released in August found a lower risk story compared to HPAL and/
about 50km south-east of Leonora. 2.4 mtpa heap leach operation could be or other treatments of nickel laterites.”
developed at NiWest – adjacent to Glen-
GME chairman Peter Sullivan said core’s Murrin Murrin nickel refinery – for Sullivan said direct production of sul-
end-users in the battery industry were an initial capex of $966 million with pay- phates from NiWest would generate sub-
likely to be the company’s main target back in 4.4 years. stantial capex and opex savings for GME
given the PFS confirmed high purity sul- due to there being no required process-
phates could be produced directly from NiWest is forecast to churn out ing of metal or intermediates.
NiWest. 456,000t nickel and 31,000t cobalt over
an initial 27 years (based on the current GME will continue to review other po-
“Obviously with nickel in solution you 8mt @ 1.03% nickel and 0.07% cobalt re- tential cost saving opportunities, particu-
have a range of different outcomes,” Sul- source), generating a NPV of $1.4 billion larly those related to the acid plant which
livan said. “We’ve chosen sulphate, but and IRR of 21.2%. Operating costs are is currently attracting the highest capital
you can produce a whole lot of different estimated at $US3.24/lb, with a $US8/lb cost of NiWest’s planned development.
products once you have the nickel in so- nickel price (including a $US0.75/lb sul-
lution. phate premium) assumed in the study. – Michael Washbourne

“We need to do a little more work from Sullivan said NiWest’s location natu-
that point of view and then move forward rally lent itself to heap leaching over the
with the DFS which will essentially be other processing options considered.
done over the next 18 months. That will
then give us a clear guideline for the pro- “It’s in a good part of the world for heap
ject and what sort of timeframe we might leaching – it’s fairly dry, it’s fairly flat – so
be looking at in terms of construction and we are looking at lower capital intensity
getting [product] to market.” compared to HPAL,” he said.

GME has set a soft target of 2023 for “It’s also relying on and utilising the
first production from NiWest, pending fact that we have seen heap leaching at
Murrin Murrin. We are looking at moving

New era dawns at Mincor

Mincor Resources NL plans to market its ore, particularly with activity in the district Mincor continues to build momentum on
future nickel products to potential new heating up again after a five-year lull. its large Kambalda ground holding, head-
lined by the recent release of a maiden re-
customers when its long-standing offtake Although the Nickel West concentrator source estimate of 550,000t @ 3.4% nickel
containing 18,700t for its promising Cassini
agreement with BHP Nickel West expires in in Kambalda is on care-and-maintenance, discovery.

February. Poseidon Nickel Ltd has revived its plans to Step-out drilling and mining studies are
currently under way with a view towards po-
While its Kambalda nickel operations are restart the 2.2 mtpa Black Swan processing tentially bringing Cassini online at the back
end of next year.
unlikely to be restarted for at least another plant and has indicated there will be surplus
“We are hopeful of determining its com-
12 months, Mincor has expressed a desire capacity at the facility for third-party feed. mercial viability soon,” Muccilli said.

to broaden its customer reach amid hot de- US-based private equity firm Black “If the study findings are positive, we will
then quickly progress to the integration
mand for nickel sulphide and nickel oxide Mountain Metals has also acquired Pano- of the mine plan to develop all our nickel
mines in the district to deliver sustainable
products. ramic Resources Ltd’s former Lanfranchi production.”

Mincor managing director Peter Muccilli operation as part of its own move into the Mincor is also assessing a series of po-
tential Cassini “lookalikes” – including Juno,
said his company remained open to all op- Kambalda district. Black Caviar and Cassini North – in a bid
to add to what was essentially the first new
tions for processing its Kambalda nickel “As we are successfully building up the greenfields nickel discovery in the Kambal-
da district in 20 years.
quality of our asset base in Kambalda,
“I have a long history in this area and it’s
there are genuine options for us to con- an area which I firmly believe keeps on giv-
ing to the people who work it,” Muccilli said.
sider our future nickel products,” Muccilli
– Michael Washbourne
said.

“Mincor is pursuing all these options as

we speak. With our corporate advisors,

we are undertaking the necessary en-

gagements, price discovery and analyt-

ics for each option.

“So, as our nickel programmes pro-

gress, we will ultimately need to decide

which is the best case to move forward

Peter Muccilli for the long-term benefit of Mincor share-
holders.”

Page 58 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

Rox rolls out scope on Mt Fisher

While 15 years as managing director of Meanwhile, Alto Capital senior analyst mos, I’ll have to buy Dan a coffee and have
Rox Resources Ltd is cause for cel-
ebration in itself, Ian Mulholland was toasted Carey Smith has conservatively forecast a chat about that and there is also the Sin-
for other reasons at this year’s Australian
Nickel Conference. an average of $US6.50-7/lb nickel price in clair plant which is within 220km of us. So

Mulholland was nearest the pin when it 2019. there are some options for us going for-
came to predicting the nickel price on Oc-
tober 9, 2018, 12 months on from the 2017 “It could quite easily reach $US7.50-8/lb,” ward.”
event.
Smith said in his presentation at the Aus- The current mine life is six years from the
Mulholland’s “guesstimate” ($US12,400/t)
was closest to the $US12,575/t nickel price tralian Nickel Conference. three deposits at Fisher East where produc-
recorded on October 9 this year.
Therefore, it appears Rox is forging tion of 7,300 tpa nickel has been estimated.
Everyone in the nickel space would wel-
come a higher nickel price but particularly ahead at the right time with Fisher East, Mulholland said a lot of drilling had been
so Rox which completed an updated scop-
ing study at the 4.2mt @ 1.9% nickel for with scoping study estimates seeing pre- completed and with extensions below the
78,000t Fisher East project in early Octo-
ber. tax net cash flow of $146 million, NPV of current resources, there was potential for at

The scoping study assumed a nickel $79 million and 44% IRR at a nickel price of least a nine-year mine life.
price of $US16,500/t or $US7.50/lb, which
is in-line with most industry forecasts for the $US7.50/lb based on the company establish- – Mark Andrews
medium to longer-term. ing a mine and associated concentrator for

“After five years of surplus, surely we’re total capex of $125 million.
headed for five years of deficit,” was Mul-
holland’s reasoning behind bullish outlooks Scoping study outcomes
for the nickel price.
for toll milling at the same
The likes of Western Areas Ltd manag-
ing director Dan Lougher ($US15,100/t), price was pre-tax net cash
Independence Group NL head of explora-
tion Ian Sandl ($US14,800/t) and GR Engi- flow of $102 million, NPV
neering Services Ltd project development
manager Stewart Findlay ($US15,500/t) of $58 million and an IRR
see nickel prices recovering somewhere in
the range which would suit Fisher East in of 55%.
the year ahead.
“The optimum operat-

ing rate was 500,000 tpa

based on the deposits we

currently have defined,”

Mulholland said.

“We updated [from

2015] the part of the

scoping study where the

next step is to truck ore

to a nearby plant. Within Paydirt executive chairman Bill Repard
220km there are three pos- presents Rox managing director Ian Mulholland with
sible plants, only one is
operating at the moment his prize for predicting the nickel price 12 months
and that is Leinster. Cos- on from the 2017 Australian Nickel Conference

Legend soaks up free kicks

Any opportunity afforded to a junior spending $30 million a year in brown- “The enthusiasm and the spirit of the
company to increase its value with- fields and greenfields exploration in this people out there conducting that explo-
out having to spend much must be taken district. Any free kicks we get will auto- ration activity absolutely tells you that
wholeheartedly. matically add value to us,” Wilson said. these guys are onto something signifi-
cant. Area D has a lot of similarities to
That is exactly what Legend Mining “Creasy is spending about $10 million Nova and this Silver Knight deposit.”
Ltd has done in the Fraser Range thanks a year and he has spent about $150 mil-
to the efforts of others in the neighbour- lion over the past 40 years, so we can un- On the back of the Silver Knight dis-
hood. derstand any success he gets is well de- covery, Legend’s share price spiked from
served. But… the value of our project is 1c to 6c/share.
The company is unashamedly trying automatically upgraded when these oth-
to repeat the Sirius story and become a er discoveries are made and disclosed.” “That happened across the period
multi-billion market capped outfit by un- when Silver Knight was discovered and
earthing the next Nova and with much Under a confidentiality agreement, disclosed, and had no small part in why
of the heavy lifting being done by Inde- Wilson visited Creasy’s Silver Knight dis- we got a massive rerating,” Wilson said.
pendence Group NL and Mark Creasy, covery, which set tongues wagging and
Legend is ready to capture the upside in Legend’s share price soaring earlier this Legend has done well to date to lev-
any exploration success enjoyed on the year. erage from the success of its cashed up
belt. neighbours and has essentially grown
Having been to Silver Knight, Wilson the company’s market cap to $70 million
“The other advantage that we are get- said Legend’s primary Area D project by spending a mere $6 million itself.
ting out there as a junior is the spend by exuded similar characteristics to it and
our neighbours. Independence Group is IGO’s Nova. – Mark Andrews

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 59

NICKEL REVIEW

Generational success debunks
laterite myths: Ardea

General opinion that HPAL projects building from a solid platform and is mak- way, as Ardea looks to supply nickel and
are no good were somewhat dis- ing inroads on the metallurgical test work cobalt to the rapidly increasing EV and
missed by Ardea Resources Ltd general front. static storage battery markets.
manager technical services Sarah Mitch-
ell during her address at the Australian The company has ticked off a number While there remains little convincing to
Nickel Conference. of successful leach tests and continuous do on supply and demand fundamentals
beneficiation, leaching through to mixed for nickel and cobalt, Ardea will need to
“Some make bold assumptions about sulphide product at pilot plant scale, continue its drive to reverse scepticism of
HPAL without really looking at the data. while assays were pending on samples HPAL projects.
Today, I would like to talk about these as- of nickel and cobalt sulphate crystals
sumptions, let’s call them myths and why produced. Mitchell recognises that HPAL plant
they are called myths,” Mitchell said. start-ups are challenging, however, not
Meanwhile, the company is looking to impossible, and believes the current
“There are three common statements lock in a strategic partner, lodge an EPA generation of HPAL hopefuls are better
not only verbalised, but written in print: and update the resource for Goongarrie equipped than ever to overcome the ob-
stacles in front of them.
Ardea general manager technical services Sarah Mitchell with samples of nickel and
cobalt sulphate crystals from the Goongarrie project, Kalgoorlie “Generational success proves that
HPAL is successful,” she said.
High pressure leaching doesn’t work; in Q4.
extended ramp-up is required and name- Current resources total 1.5mt nickel “A number of HPAL projects have suc-
plate capacity is never met.” cessfully operated over the last few dec-
and 130,700t cobalt, with the company ades, like Coral Bay in the Philippines.
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd’s Coral having already assessed viable cases How did they do this? They had a disci-
Bay project in Philippines was the prime for 1 mtpa (capex $US472 million) and plined approach to risk management. If
example used to support Mitchell’s ar- 1.5 mtpa ($US588 million) processing we take McNulty’s analysis, through the
gument that HPAL projects can be suc- scenarios in a PFS at Goongarrie, part of work of resource definition through to
cessful. the wider Kalgoorlie Nickel Project. geo-metallurgical data-basing, piloting,
integrating piloting of your ore, water to
Ardea has studied Coral Bay closely The PFS cases have demonstrated selecting a qualified engineer, is abso-
and unlike others before it, plans to apply significant economic opportunities at lutely the utmost to be able to succeed
the lessons learned there at its Goongar- Goongarrie and Ardea has moved to with a HPAL plant.”
rie nickel-cobalt project, Kalgoorlie. a scoping study on a larger 2.25 mtpa
model, which is also proving to be viable. In addition to the knowledge base cur-
With Vale and Heron Resources Ltd rently at its disposal, Ardea can also lev-
having already spent $50 million on a In light of successful progress be- erage from the equipment and technical
PFS between 2005 and 2009, Ardea is ing made, DFS programmes are under know-how of the engineering companies
in Western Australia to ensure Goongar-
rie will be developed into the next suc-
cessful HPAL plant operation.

“Sumitomo at Coral Bay has paved
the way for a successful HPAL project
process to deliver a profitable long life
project. Ardea’s ore type is consistent,
it thickens well, it has high levels of co-
balt and consumes very little acid com-
parably. There are no screen upgrades
required and that is actually a plus for
beneficiation,” Mitchell said.

“On site we have our own neutral-
iser, so we mine that anyway and its
effectively free. We’re environmentally
friendly with 80% of our power coming
from recycled heat from the acid plant,
so it is comparable in capital intensity to
the successful operations. We also have
access to large amounts of vendor data
and great engineering companies here in
WA.”

– Mark Andrews

Page 60 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

23 October 2018

Perth,Western Australia

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AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 61

NORTHERN TERRITORY

Northern Territory
powers on

The looming wet season appears un- happy with that but we went through an One of the shales
likely to dampen the spirits of many inquiry which was supportive of all the
Territorians as the Northern Territory ex- recommendations and information we alone at Beetaloo
periences a period of unrivalled prosper- are bringing in.”
ity. apparently hosts 500
Vowles said the lifting of the morato-
Even the hardworking “boaties” ac- rium on unconventional gas would ulti- ccf (cubic feet) of
customed to some R&R during northern mately pave the way for exploration and
Australia’s big wet at this time of the year fracking production under strict laws. gas.
are scheduled to be all hands on deck
as the Million Dollar Fish competition en- Furthermore, the State has recently “He [Canavan]
tered a fourth season from October 1. outlined a five-point gas strategy around
LNG in Darwin in order to expand ex- knows the national
“Normally, the charter fishing compa- ports, grow gas supply services and
nies close up business over the wet sea- establish a gas manufacturing industry. importance of that
son, but with the $1 million fish compe- There is also a concerted effort being put
tition starting they are packed and fully and we are working
booked over the wet season. It is a good NT Minister for Primary Industry and
thing people are up here spending mon- Resources Hon Ken Vowles together and making
ey; that is great,” Northern Territory Min-
ister for Primary Industry and Resources into researching and growing the indus- sure that is ready to
Hon Ken Vowles told Paydirt. try.
go and we are doing
Recreational fishing has lured many an A further fillip for NT was the reappoint-
angler to NT in the past and will continue ment of Matt Canavan as Federal Minis- everything we can to
to do so, however, there is a bigger hook ter for Resources and Northern Australia
now pulling people into the State. during the latest Australian Government create jobs. Having
shake-up.
The Inpex-operated $40 billion Ichthys Matt back in is a real
LNG project in Darwin attracted 10,000 Canavan, a country member for
people at the start of the year as con- Queensland, and Federal Minister for calming influence
struction was in full swing, with about a Agriculture and Water Resources David
third of those involved during the build- Littleproud, have been warmly welcomed for the Territory,”
phase being Territorians. by Vowles who says the pairing will serve
NT well. Vowles said.
“By the end of the year, the numbers
will be down to 3,000 during operation With the moratorium lifted, Vowels said While the gas
and we have about 3,000 locals out there Canavan understood the opportunities
now, so we are helping them transfer into and importance of the Beetaloo sub ba- sector steams
other jobs. There are so many opportuni- sin, south-east of Katherine, and part of
ties up here to work so we are encourag- the greater McArthur Basin. ahead in NT, pre-
ing people to get to the Territory. Even
the people that have left to go study else- It is estimated that Australia consumes vailing commodity
where and may have landed other jobs, about 1.4 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas.
we are trying to entice them back to the prices across the
Territory as well,” Vowles said.
board in the last 18
Last month, the first condensate cargo
from Ichthys departed Inpex’s offshore months have also
floating production, storage and offload-
ing facility, with peak production of up to been a boon for the
8.9 mtpa LNG, 1.65 mtpa LPG and up to
100,000 barrels of condensate per day State.
expected.
FY2017/18 saw a
“Obviously, we have got ConocoPhil-
lips here in the LNG space also and they record-breaking year in terms of mineral
have been going here for a long time.
There is so much happening around the production value in NT with $4.49 billion
place, but lifting the moratorium is proba-
bly the biggest decision the Territory has revenue created.
had for a long time,” Vowles said.
The outcome was 24% better than the
“It takes a very strong government to
do that; we know that not everyone is $3.63 billion reported in the previous fi-

nancial year, with the latest results mark-

ing the first time the value of NT’s mineral

production has surpassed the $4 billion

mark.

Production highlights for FY2018 in-

cluded; a 30% increase in bauxite pro-

duction to 12mt; an increase of 24% in

gold production to 600,000oz; and zinc

and manganese production increases of

more than 15%.

A reflection of the surge in mining ac-

tivity was attendance at the State’s annu-

al Mining the Territory conference which

was also up 60% in 2018.

Building confidence in the NT mining

sector are projects such as OM Holdings

Ltd’s Bootu Creek manganese mine,

110km north of Tennant Creek, where

production generated $91.6 million to

group revenue in the first half of 2018 and

the opening of the first gold mine in over

a decade at Tennant Creek.

“We opened the first gold mine there

for 12 years, the Edna Beryl mine, and

Page 62 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

we have got a couple of really productive along very well, but we get on and keep Even the incoming wet season
areas down there. We are working very our heads down and do what’s best to get won’t dampen the liveliness
closely with a couple of proponents about investment,” Vowles said. of NT’s resources sector
a central milling facility which will revolu-
tionise the gold industry, in particular, but The Government’s hopes of attracting Changes to the royalty regime to take
also Tennant Creek [as a whole],” Vowles investment into NT’s mining sector are effect on July 1 2019, requires mining
said. reflected in its $26 million Resourcing the companies to pay the greater of the exist-
Territory initiative, which has received a ing 20% profits-based scheme, or a value-
“It will get up; it is just a matter of who $2.2 million increase, and the four-year based royalty on their gross mineral pro-
does it. The other thing we are putting a lot extension granted to the Creating Oppor- duction revenue at a rate of 1% in a mine’s
of loading on is local content contracts. I tunities for Resource Exploration (CORE) first mineral royalty year on or after 1 July
think we have had 19 contracts down there programme. 2019; 2% in the second mineral royalty
for leaving legacy mines works. And, of the year; 2.5% from the third year onwards.
19 contracts, 18 of those have gone to lo- “That is important for green and brown-
cal businesses. There is such a big history fields sites; co-investing in drilling and col- Pearce said NT’s incoming royalty re-
down there and one of the jobs given to me laboration in geophysics as well. We are gime had damaged the State’s attractive-
by the Chief Minister is to make it a mining saying we are open for business and we ness and it needed to be reformed.
services hub, which it already is, but we are trying to streamline some processes.
are trying to grow it now with a bit more fo- We know we have the resources here, “The benefits from the Resourcing the
cus and creating more opportunities which we’ve got to make sure that Territorians Territory initiative will extend far beyond the
means mining.” are benefitting from it and that Territorians mining and mineral exploration sector and
are getting jobs. That is a huge focus and lead to more jobs, revenues and growth in
Vowles says the Government has tried everything we do is about jobs,” Vowles associated sectors,” Pearce said.
to assist industry by working on streamlin- said.
ing processes and developing initiatives “Unfortunately following the changes
to capture whatever investment dollar af- The Resourcing the Territory programme to the royalty rate, the NT has cemented
forded to the NT’s mining sector. was widely welcomed, however, Associa- its place as the highest cost jurisdiction in
tion of Mining and Exploration Companies Australia, so while this programme is des-
“We can really work with the industry, chief executive Warren Pearce said it did perately needed, the Government must
which I think is really important. But, like not offset the “royalty pain delivered in the analyse the cost of doing business in the
in any relationship, you don’t always get recent Budget”. NT if they want more investment.”

– Mark Andrews

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 63

NORTHERN TERRITORY A renewed focus on regional
exploration has revitalised PNX’s

plans for a DFS on the Hayes
Creek zinc-gold-silver project,

about 170km south of Darwin

PNX’s fountain of opportunity

When PNX Metals Ltd acquired the Success with the drill bit at Fountain it with a low-cost initial scout programme
Fountain Head mineral leases off Head and other regional prospects such to see if it was going to be something we
Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd earlier this year, the as Cookies Corner and Moline prompted could continue to advance,” Fox said.
ground less than 15km from the former’s PNX to revisit its plans for a DFS on Hayes
Hayes Creek zinc-gold-silver project had Creek, about 170km south of Darwin. “There are a number of options available
been flagged as the preferred location for to us; one is the incorporation of any po-
its processing plant. A PFS released in July 2017 found the tentially economic resource into the Hayes
project could be developed for an initial Creek project if it’s a similar style of miner-
However, by the time the transaction $58 million capex and would generate a alisation or if it can be treated through the
was finalised in late May, PNX was putting NPV of $133 million, based on net smelter proposed process plant. The second is that
together an initial drilling programme for revenue of $628 million from the sale of Kirkland Lake is looking to restart its Union
Fountain Head after a review of the histori- zinc and precious metal concentrate over Reefs mill in the middle of next year, as far
cal data indicated the potential additional a 6.5-year mine life. as we’re aware. There may be opportuni-
gold mineralisation could complement its ties in this kind of environment where it’s
Hayes Creek development plans. Operations were based on a steady- predominately free gold to monetise that
state 450,000 tpa process rate with ore style of mineralisation through the existing
PNX’s decision to drill Fountain Head sourced initially from open-pit mining at Mt infrastructure that Kirkland Lake holds.”
was quickly justified with a series of shal- Bonnie before transitioning to the under-
low, high-grade hits returned, including 1m ground at Iron Blow. PNX completed an oversubscribed
@ 10.86 g/t gold from 29m, 3m @ 11.09 $3.46 million capital raising last month,
g/t gold from 93m and 1m @ 28 g/t gold “We really needed to assess these op- which was backed by new German-based
from 83m. portunities at both Fountain Head and cornerstone investor Delphi, to fund its
Cookies Corner, and to a lesser extent also continued exploration at Fountain Head,
“Fountain Head is one of these areas down at Moline, to figure out how we incor- Cookies Corner and Moline, among other
which is the gift that keeps on giving at the porate them into the overall Hayes Creek regional prospects.
moment,” PNX managing director James project economics,” Fox said.
Fox told Paydirt. Moline, 65km east of Hayes Creek, and
“What I mean by that is we didn’t want the new Banner discovery (6m @ 39.5 g/t
“In undertaking due diligence [for the to go down the pathway of finalising the gold from 54m) within the Fountain Head
Hayes Creek process plant] we identified DFS and then turning around in six months project area have both been identified as
the opportunity to expand the known min- time and saying, ‘actually Fountain Head is potential new ore sources for PNX to factor
eralisation that exists underneath the his- so significant that we need to take a few into its development strategy.
toric open pits there. Our plan was twofold; steps back and figure out how we’re going
if it turned out there was no mineralisation to monetise this’.” “This is one of the things we’ve been
we could tick that box and say, ‘OK, let’s trying to highlight for investors: that Hayes
move on to development of this area for the At the time of print, a second RC drill- Creek is just one part, albeit a more ad-
Hayes Creek process plant’, or if there is ing programme of up to 20 holes cover- vanced part, of a much larger story that
potential for significant mineralisation, we ing about 2,000m was being undertaken contains a number of exciting areas,” Fox
need to test that to ensure that we give it a at Cookies Corner, less than 30km from said.
good go for our investors. Hayes Creek. It follows an initial campaign
to test a 1km long gold-in-soils anomaly “There are a multitude of additional tar-
“We’ve identified mineralisation, albeit where surface rock chips returned up to gets that we have within our exploration
non-continuous at this point in time, over 28.7 g/t gold. package that we’d like to continue to test…
an approximate 2km strike that is still open to continue to advance the exploration
along the main anticline. It is very early Cookies Corner has been on PNX’s pipeline and bring them into the overall pro-
stage, but everything points to the fact that books for some time, but it was not until this ject envelope if we can.”
there could be a sizeable gold-bearing sys- year the company has cast its net wider to
tem there that clearly warrants further fol- assess the regional exploration potential of – Michael Washbourne
low-up to see how big this thing could be.” its Northern Territory portfolio.

“Our strategy there was to go and test

Page 64 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

Small mines hit royalty snag

Emmerson Resources Ltd managing submitted, will get approved reasonably tribute agreement with Emmerson.
director Rob Bills concedes impending quickly. They’ve changed a lot, they’re a Bills said the company would continue to
royalty changes for miners in the Northern lot more on the front foot and more pre-
Territory will “significantly impact” his com- pared to come out to site, more prepared split its time between Tennant Creek and
pany’s plans to rejuvenate the Tennant to get engaged, rather than trails of letters several early stage exploration projects in
Creek mineral field. and emails, they will pick up the phone or New South Wales, including Whatling Hill
come to site, which I think is a great thing. which is shaping as a promising porphyry
From July 1 next year, companies must copper-gold opportunity.
fork out the greater of the existing 20% “But time will tell because we now have
profits-based scheme or a value-based lots of these approvals needing to be ap- – Michael Washbourne
royalty on their gross mineral production proved in a timely manner to make this
revenue at a rate of 1% in a mine’s first whole Tennant Creek thing work. If we get Emmerson’s strategic alliance with
mineral royalty year. delayed, it means that the mill is not getting Territory Resources will see several
feed, it means dollars aren’t being made
Royalties increase to 2% for a mine’s and it’s not profitable.” small mines developed in the
second mineral royalty year and to 2.5% Tennant Creek mineral field
from the third year onwards. As per the terms of the strategic alliance,
Emmerson will receive 12% and 6% gross
Emmerson recently completed its formal revenue (less refining costs) of all gold pro-
strategic alliance with Territory Resources duced over the life of the Edna Beryl and
Ltd which is focused on bringing a series Chariot small mines, respectively.
of small gold mines in the Tennant Creek
district into production. Emmerson will also receive a 25% profit
share from any other mine developed with-
Territory Resources is on track to recom- in the southern project area (SPA), exclud-
mission the mothballed Warrego process- ing Edna Beryl and Chariot, in exchange
ing plant into a modern 300,000 tpa CIP for Territory Resources developing, mining
facility as early as next month, with initial and processing the gold at its cost.
feed to come from the existing Edna Beryl
small mine and other nearby sources. Territory Resources will also pour $5
million into exploration over five years to
“The change to the royalty regime really earn a 75% interest in the SPA, with Em-
impacts our small mines quite significant- merson to be the managers and operators
ly,” Bills told Paydirt. of that work.

“There’s no minimum hurdle or anything Emmerson has retained 100% rights to
like that, it’s an ad valorem or a net profit, about 75% of the existing tenement pack-
so that’s unfortunately probably the worst age at Tennant Creek, including the Mau-
of both worlds having both and I think that retania and Jasper Hills projects.
has definitely eroded the competitiveness
of the NT as a mining jurisdiction.” Bills said the strategic alliance was a
great outcome for Emmerson after not
Emmerson is a long-term resident of the yielding the “big discovery” that was the
NT, having floated on the ASX in late 2007 goal of the company’s previous JV with
on the back of holding an extensive tene- Evolution Mining Ltd.
ment package around the Tennant Creek
mineral field. “This is more focused around monetis-
ing and expanding the existing pipeline,
Bills said the impending royalty changes which provides a very clear focus for Em-
had taken the gloss off some of the posi- merson and for Territory,” Bills said.
tive progress made by the NT Government
and its Department of Primary Industry “If you look back at the history of Ten-
and Resources in recent years. nant Creek, a lot of those deposits were
actually found by underground drilling dur-
“It’s been a little bit one step forward and ing the development phase, or the feasibil-
two steps back in some respects,” Bills ity stage. They weren’t actually found from
said. surface drilling because of the coarse na-
ture of the gold and the unknowns around
“The Government of the day are very the geology. It was only when underground
proactive in terms of what we see in Ten- drilling was taking place that discoveries
nant Creek. The Resources Minister Ken were actually made.
Vowles is a local Tennant Creek lad, a Tra-
ditional Owner, and he is very, very sup- “We’ve got big hopes for it. We think that
portive of revitalising Tennant Creek and there’s a lot more legs in a number of these
making it the mining centre of the NT. smaller mines, which hopefully will grow
into big mines.”
“We have seen that people in his de-
partment are very proactive. Going back a Territory Resources has also purchased
few years, the mine management plan for the Edna Beryl Mining Company which
Edna Beryl and things like that were quite was initially founded to develop the high-
slow, but it looks like the mine manage- grade Edna Beryl deposit in 2014 via a
ment plan for Warrego, which has been

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 65

NORTHERN TERRITORY

Vimy’s unexpected bonus

Vimy completed drilling campaigns
at Angularli and Such Wow during a
small window for exploration in the
recent Northern Territory field season

Vimy Resources Ltd’s acquisition of the for a long time. an] deposits inside the footprint we have.”
largest granted tenement package “So, it’s a bit of an unintended conse- Vimy tasked Wood plc with oversee-
in the Alligator River uranium field will im-
prove the company’s chances of landing quence and we certainly hadn’t thought of ing an engineering scoping study on the
sales contracts for its flagship Mulga Rock that when we went into the transaction.” existing resource at Angularli with results
project, according to managing director due at the time of print, although Young
Mike Young. Within three weeks of taking on Alliga- conceded the findings were unlikely to be
tor River, Vimy announced a maiden in- released publicly due to ASIC restrictions
Only a month after releasing a DFS on ferred resource for the Angularli deposit around the reporting of inferred resources.
Mulga Rock, about 240km north-west of (910,000t @ 1.3% uranium for 26 mlb)
Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, Vimy sur- which was never released publicly by Recent metallurgical test work on sam-
prised the market with the unexpected ac- Cameco. ples from Angularli returned uranium leach
quisition of 3,865sq km of largely under- extractions of 98.5% with low acid and oxi-
explored ground in the Northern Territory, Unfortunately for Vimy, unexpected dant consumptions of 14 kg/t and 1.4 kg/t
as part of Cameco Corp’s fire sale of its delays with the transaction meant the hydrogen peroxide respectively.
Australian uranium assets. company could not get on the ground to
explore until early August when a 14-hole Young insisted he and his team were
Alligator River, which hosts the Ranger, extensional drilling programme covering spending “way more time” on Mulga Rock
Jabiluka and Nabarlek mines, is consid- 4,650m kicked off at Angularli. A further development work than on Alligator River,
ered one of the world’s top three uranium 15-hole campaign covering 3,950m at the despite Vimy not having released any new
provinces alongside Kazakhstan and prospective Such Wow target was ongo- information on the former since April.
Canada’s Athabasca Basin. It remains ing at the time of print.
largely underexplored, in part due to being According to the DFS released in late
overlooked during Australia’s “three-mine As part of the acquisition, Vimy gained January, Mulga Rock can be developed
policy” from 1984 to 1996. access to several years of IP compiled by for $493 million to produce 3.5 mtpa of
Cameco, as well as their former senior ge- yellowcake at $US27.95/lb over a 15-year
In the weeks and months that followed ologist Penny Sinclair, who was instrumen- life-of-mine. A uranium contract price
the acquisition announcement, Vimy re- tal in devising the exploration model to tar- of $US60/lb was assumed in the study,
ceived widespread praise for picking up get uranium in the Alligator River province which flagged a pre-tax NPV of $530 mil-
“some of the best uranium ground in the lion and IRR of 25%.
world”, as Young was told directly by one Young said results from his company’s
investor, while others pointed out the new- drilling efforts to date had proved that mod- US-based former Cameco executive
est addition to the company’s portfolio el was accurate. Scott Hyman continues to negotiate sales
would deliver “unintended good conse- contracts for Vimy with potential North
quences” for Mulga Rock. “This exploration programme is a bit like American utilities and customers in a bid
finding the proverbial needle in the hay- to capitalise on what the company sees as
“Alligator River gives the probability of stack, except you’ve got to find the hay- a “small window” to enter that market.
success of getting contracts for Mulga stack first,” he said.
Rock a massive boost and the reason for “There’s a three-year timeframe for
that is because Alligator River gives us a “We have the Angularli deposit; we know these guys to buy uranium before you’ll
pipeline of projects,” Young told Paydirt. its shape, its size, its alteration halo, so see contract coverage fall away in the
now we’re doing soil sampling, radiomet- early 2020s, which means they’re going
“In Mulga Rock, we have a 15-20 year rics and termite-mound sampling to get an to start writing contracts now,” Young said.
mine life, which to us seems like a long idea of, if we didn’t know it was there, what
time, but to a utility it’s not a long time. would the geochemistry look like over this “Our strategy has always been ‘let’s be
There was a concern that we would be a deposit. ready for this contracting period’. The win-
15-year flash in the pan, so now that we’ve dow is only going to be open for 2-3 years
got Alligator River and we’ve got a pipe- “This is a target-rich environment and and once it closes the American market is
line of projects, it’s given the utilities a lot when you look at the footprint of the grant- closed again. So, in terms of our strategy
of comfort that we’re going to be around ed tenement package and you compare it and planning, I think we’ve actually hit the
to the Athabasca Basin, the size of it could sweet spot really well.”
host several world-class deposits. You
could fit most of Cameco’s major [Canadi- – Michael Washbourne

Page 66 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

9 - 10 April 2019

Hilton Adelaide

South Australia’s premier mining forum

Sponsorship and exhibition
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For all enquiries please contact Christine Oelschlaeger on
(+61) 8 9321 0355 or email [email protected]’oS PmAYD.IaRTuNOVEMBER 2018 Page 67

NORTHERN TERRITORY

TNG peaking where it counts

TNG Ltd managing director Paul Burton Burton said the company had received “a from it. It’s been very much an open discus-
has urged investors to look beyond the
grade of the vanadium contained within the few more knocks” on its doors this year in the sion on the whole of the vanadium business
host rock at his company’s Mt Peake project
in the Northern Territory. wake of higher vanadium pricing and growing side that we will have.”

Mt Peake, about 230km north of Alice interest in vanadium redox storage batteries. While vanadium has grabbed most of the
Springs, hosts a reserve grade of 0.42% va-
nadium pentoxide which is considered low in “The vanadium has just gone gangbusters headlines for TNG this year, the company
comparison to many of TNG’s peers both in
Australia and overseas. on the pricing and that’s good news for us,” has quietly ticked off several key milestones

However, Burton believes what the multi- he said. for its other revenue streams.
faceted project, which also hosts strong tita-
nium and iron reserves, lacks in grade from “People are interested because we’ve In September, the company signed a
a vanadium viewpoint is more than compen-
sated through the company’s processing demonstrated that we have a process that binding heads-of-agreement with German
flowsheet.
can not only recover vanadium at very high technology provider Ti-Cons for the supply
TNG – in conjunction with METS Pty
Ltd and the CSIRO – has spent several recovery rates from these types of resourc- of a full technology package for a titanium
years developing the TIVAN process to
extract high-purity vanadium, titanium es, but also get maximum value and get the pigment plant, including engineering, con-
and iron oxide products from titaniferous
magnetite concentrates. Further work other elements out as well. struction and procurement support, training
with German-based development partner
SMS Group has identified a subsequent “We’ve also had people interested in what and commissioning.
process for streamlined production of the
titanium concentrate. we can actually do with the different types Under the agreement, Ti-Cons will pro-

“I think this a point which is missed of vanadium that we produce with the pen- vide TNG with production and processing
by not only some of our competitors,
but by the market in general,” Burton toxide and the electrolytes that you can take guarantees for the production of titanium
told Paydirt.
pigments suitable for outdoor coating ap-
“Because of our process, it’s not the
grade of the host rock that’s important, it’s plications, as well as acting as a subcon-
what you can recover. Our process allows
us to recover almost 90% of the vanadium tractor to the company’s EPC contractor
out of the rock. Other processes out there
are nowhere near that. for Mt Peake.

“Our magnetite concentrate grade Titanium products are projected to gen-
is equivalent to many other resources
around, so that’s what you want to look at, erate at least 50% of Mt Peake’s revenue,
not the host rock grade. It’s all great to say
you’ve got a deposit that has a host rock however, no formal offtake arrangements
grade of 2% vanadium, for example, but
if you can only recover 50% of it, you’re have been completed to date.
back down to square one and you’re re-
covering less value than we are. “It’s absolutely crucial that we can dem-

“There’s no way we’d actually have a onstrate to the global market, because
maiden mineral reserve if the resource
was not economic. The grades are most titanium pigment is a global chemical in-
certainly economic because what we’re
looking at is the concentrate and then dustry, that we will have a quality, state-
what we can recover from that concen-
trate.” of-the-art plant and one that is backed up

TNG has already signed a binding life- by the guarantees which we’ve got from
of-mine offtake agreement with Korea-
based group WOOJIN Metals for 60% of Ti-Cons,” Burton said.
the vanadium product stream.
“We’re dealing with some of the big
An updated DFS released last Novem-
ber envisaged production of 243,000t va- majors in Europe now. SMS and Ti-Cons
nadium pentoxide, 10.6mt iron oxide and
3.5mt titanium pigment over 17 years for an are lions for us in this industry and give us
estimated capex of $853 million.
great credibility when we go into develop-

ment and production.”

Just days before the Ti-Cons agree-

ment was announced, TNG secured a

$10 million strategic investment from In-

dian conglomerate Vimson Group, which

also expressed interest in potential offtake

for the iron oxide.

Last month, TNG formally executed a

Native Title agreement with the Central

Land Council and the Traditional Owners

at Mt Peake, paving the way for a mineral

lease and ancillary licences to be granted

in the coming months.

Territory and federal-level environmen-

tal assessments for the project were final-

ised earlier this year, with the mine man-

agement plan also tipped to be signed off

in due course.

“Once you’ve got all those in place, then

you can say you have a project and you

can go to the big financial groups and say

‘it’s all de-risked, let’s talk about the break-

TNG is moving closer to development of the Mt up of the debt and equity’,” Burton said.

Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project, 230km – Michael Washbourne
north of Alice Springs

Page 68 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

Prodigy starts to fire up

The 2019 NewGenGold Conference is significant exploration drilling out there. while an exclusive option granted to Ark
12 months away and Prodigy Gold NL People have forgotten about the Tanami Mines Ltd to operate the Old Pirate pro-
managing director Matt Briggs is aiming and they are surprised to hear the story.” ject in the Tanami could deliver Prodigy
to be part of the programme. future cash flow.
Prodigy has completed 38,000m air-
“That’s the aim; to have a discovery to core drilling alone this year and at the – Mark Andrews
present at NewGenGold,” Briggs said, time of print was awaiting results from
referring to the pre-eminent gold explo- the two co-funded diamond drill holes Matt Briggs
ration conference which celebrates the into Capstan, within the Bluebush pro-
best gold discoveries. ject. Formerly ABM Resources, Prodigy
Gold NL has undertaken a rebranding
Since Briggs and former Gold Fields Gold mineralisation has been defined process since mid-2016. Part of that
Ltd colleague Tommy McKeith joined over 8km, with multiple trends 4.5km strategy has been finding partners
forces at the then-ABM Resources in long and 750m wide, at Capstan. willing to get busy with their non-core
2016, the pair have strategically divvied copper-gold and base metals projects
up the massive ground holding acquired Aircore drilling results returned anom- in Northern Territory.
by the former management team. alous intersections 21m wide and 4 g/t Here is a snapshot of how Prodigy’s
gold end-of-hole hits at Capstan, which strategy has resulted in $24 million in
In 2015, ABM boasted land tenure be- have exceeded company expectations. exploration farm-ins:
fitting a major with some 45,000sq km
of ground in Northern Territory’s Tanami “Not too many companies in Australia • Newcrest Mining Ltd can earn 75%
region. have this calibre of project,” Briggs said. of the Euro gold project by spending
$12 million in the ground. The JV was
When Briggs started as managing di- A 5,000m RC programme is planned formed in July, with work programmes
rector, his blueprint was to use his ex- for Capstan in the current quarter as being permitted. Initial activity will
perience in under-cover exploration to Prodigy attempts to find another Callie focus on the Dune prospect, near
good effect, however, prioritising the land (14 moz gold). Newmont Mining Corp’s Oberon
package was a must. deposit
Capstan is in a similar rock sequence
In doing so, Briggs and team have and structural setting as Callie and with • Independence Group Ltd was doing a
not only identified the likes of Bluebush, 15 known deposits – 13 of which stick out 12,000km line survey over the Lake
50km from Callie, and Suplejack to con- of the ground – in only 5% of the area, Mackay copper-gold project at the
centrate on but also brought big guns in Briggs is adamant there are more Cal- time of print. Independence can earn
as JV partners to forge ahead at other lies and Groundrushes (1.7 moz) to be 60% of the project by committing $6
projects. The company’s prospective discovered. million in the ground
non-core copper-gold and base metals
projects are now covered under earn-in “This is exactly where we want to be at • Gladiator Resources Ltd acquired
deals with Newcrest Mining Ltd at the this time of the year,” Briggs said. “The Thunderbird Metals’ interest in the
Euro JV, Independence Group Ltd at the time is now for the Territory, they need North Arunta copper-gold JV and can
Lake Mackay JV and Gladiator Resourc- development and all that has been miss- earn 70% by spending $6.5 million
es Ltd at North Arunta. ing in the Tanami is the drill bit. Year after
year at NewGenGold the message has
Streamlining the portfolio has also always been about the need to be drilling
meant a reduction of $2.4 million of an- and that’s what we’re going to be doing.”
nual holding costs to less than $500,000.
While there remains another one or two Prodigy has a strategic resource of
JVs in the pipeline, the strategy unrolled 310,000oz @ 1.95 g/t gold at Suplejack,
to date culminated in a rebranding of 58km from Northern Star’s Central Tan-
the company earlier this year to Prodigy ami JV plant, with the deposit’s geologi-
Gold. cal features akin to the nearby 1.7 moz
Groundrush project.
Despite softness in the gold price and
mining sector reform in NT, there is an “It is a massive portfolio and we have
air of vibrancy in the State’s gold indus- done a lot of work to get it moving more
try creating an apt time for Prodigy to be aggressively than ever before. At Mining
making its mark. the Territory conference, [Newcrest’s]
Fraser MacCorquodale called us the
“We have seen a change in risk ap- poster child for exploration because
petite in the last 18 months, while New- shortly after we signed the JV we were
mont’s [Mining Corp] turnaround at Callie out there drilling,” Briggs said.
has also generated a lot of interest in the
area,” Briggs said. St Barbara Ltd has also taken to Prod-
igy’s strategy and subscribed for 10%
“We are just getting started on our of the company’s stock to sit alongside
portfolio and when you look at the base other major shareholders Pacific Road
metals prices it is hard for us to get the Capital (15.6%), APAC Resources Capi-
breadth and scale of our portfolio through tal (13.6%), Independence (9%) and Cra-
to market. Newmont had 16 rigs, North- ton Capital (6%).
ern Star [Resources Ltd] had four rigs
and we are really the only others doing The company has $6 million cash and
Briggs said raising money would only
happen based on successful results,

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 69

MINERAL SERVICES

New gold assay fires
industry interest

Ausdrill Ltd subsidiary MinAnalytical’s “For our customers, it means the sys- validation process saw MinAnalytical test
introduction of its new photon assay tem has been validated and fully tested, the photon assay against traditional fire
machine has already gripped the gold and they can rest assured they will re- assay across a variety of ore types and
sector, with several customers commit- ceive accurate results which have been particle sizes. The new technique has
ting to the new technology. benchmarked against fire assay,” Wheel- ultimately proved quicker, more accurate
er said. and more reliable than the established
MinAnalytical launched the system process.
– developed by CSIRO and brought to The fully automated system uses high-
market by Chrysos Corporation – at Au- powered x-ray technology to activate Wheeler recognises the turnaround
gust’s Diggers & Dealers. MinAnalyti- the gold with the subsequent signals speed as the Chrysos machine’s most
cal general manager Gary Wheeler told being counted by sensitivity detectors. immediately obvious advantage.
Paydirt the process proved popular Commercial-scale testing has proven
among the Diggers throng. the technique to be more accurate than “This first machine has the capac-
traditional fire assaying and can reduce ity to analyse up to 50,000 samples per
“We had wall-to-wall queues to the assay turnaround times from more than month because not only is the analysis
point where the Ausdrill guys were say- 48 hours to less than 10 minutes. The quicker but the preparation time is much
ing there should’ve been a MinAnalyti- reduced,” he said. “There is no pulveris-
cal booth. The interest was very
strong,” Wheeler said. ing down to 75 microns – stats are
leaning towards the 3mm crush be-
The only disappointment for Mi- ing the most suitable – and instead
nAnalytical was that the Chrysos of crushing, grinding and then firing
photon assay process hadn’t re- with multiple people handling the
ceived national accreditation by the sample, the photon machine al-
time of the Kalgoorlie forum. How- lows for the sample to be handled
ever, by September it could an- by a single person. And, because
nounce full certification, following it is largely automated, that per-
the National Association of Testing son doesn’t necessarily have to be
Authorities (NATA) issuing of ac- highly trained.”
creditation in compliance with ISO/
IEC 17025 – Testing. NATA is Aus- The non-destructive nature of
tralia’s national accreditation body the process also means samples
for laboratories, inspection bodies can be re-assayed multiple times,
and calibration services. allowing companies to review pro-
cesses to take advantage of acces-

Page 70 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

sibility of results. “The technology side is all done; it is had ensured MinAnalytical had a team
Wheeler said industry enthusiasm for now about the logistics of getting the sam- capable of executing and improving on
ples into the system efficiently,” Wheeler the group’s plans for photon assaying.
the process was already translating into said. “We are busily gearing systems up
participation. to get it up and running at capacity.” “We have now trained a group of peo-
ple that can operate and troubleshoot the
“The ramp-up has actually happened The company will be hoping to com- unit and we have also put a lot of work into
quicker than we anticipated,” he said. “A plete further refinements to the process managing the data, etc. We have a very
couple of customers saw the benefits of it before the end of the year prior to execut- competent team of operators which gives
immediately and were keen to get in early ing expansion plans in 2019 with Ausdrill customers confidence that we know what
as they were comfortable with what we having approved the installation of two we are doing,” he said.
were doing.” further units in Kalgoorlie.
While establishing the process in the
The photon assay unit at MinAnalyti- “Currently, we are crushing, splitting Eastern Goldfields is MinAnalytical’s pri-
cal’s facility in the Perth suburb of Can- and sampling conventionally but the new ority, Wheeler didn’t rule out venturing
ning Vale has already begun processing units will be highly sophisticated and we further afield.
samples. In October, ASX-listed explorer are spending money on automation,”
Bellevue Gold Ltd became the first com- Wheeler said. “The automation will im- “We will look outside WA but we want
pany to report assay results from the new prove speed and productivity but more to get maximum traction within a familiar
process when it released a series of inter- importantly improve the quality of the pro- environment first. We see the next appli-
sections from the new Viago discovery on cess. cation as being at the mine site,” he said.
its namesake gold project. “Where projects are remote, we are look-
“We are working closely with Ausdrill to ing to design a unit for mine site; a model
“It is quite a big step,” Wheeler said. look at how we can streamline the system that is tailored for specific power require-
With the technology certified and in and improve the chain of custody for the ments, etc.”
operation, MinAnalytical’s challenge now samples.”
is to ensure the process is as efficient as – Dominic Piper
possible. Wheeler said eight months of training

“This first machine has the capacity
to analyse up to 50,000 samples
per month because not only is the
analysis quicker but the preparation time
is much reduced.”

Bellevue Gold became the first company to report assay results from the
new Chrysos photon assay process when it released a series of intersections

from the Viago discovery on its namesake gold project, WA

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 71

MINERAL SERVICES

Cultural fit for Clontarf
and Cummins

Successful partnerships are built on the Clontarf Aboriginal College principal Troy Hayter (far left) introduced US-based
alignment of cultural values; some- Cummins chief executive Tom Linebarger (fourth right) and managing director,
thing Clontarf Aboriginal College and
Cummins South Pacific can attest to. South Pacific Stephanie Disher (second left) to Clontarf students

The specialised care school focused tive group of industry partners, including in years 11 and 12 the opportunity to com-
on engaging Aboriginal youth in educa- Westrans Services, Utilities, Engineer- plete a Certificate II in Automotive Engi-
tion and the American-headquartered ing, Electrical and Automotive Training neering in addition to their regular curricu-
Fortune 500 company are worlds apart, Council (UEEA), Automotive Holdings lum commitments.
but their ambitions could not be more Group Ltd (AHG), and Heavy Vehicle In-
closely matched. dustry Australia (HVIA), who have signed Motivated by the potential to further
a MOU with Clontarf Aboriginal College their education in the designated fields
“Cummins has really strong values in to form a secondary school vocational and possibly gain employment closer to
giving everyone the same opportunities education programme at Clontarf. home one day has made the TEC pro-
and to me it is about opening up young gramme highly popular with Aboriginal
people’s eyes and giving them a life ex- The industry partners provide work ex- and Torres Strait Islander students at
perience,” Cummins South Pacific Ap- perience opportunities for students par- Perth-based Clontarf.
prentice programme manager Western ticipating in the Technical Education for
Region (Western Australia, South Aus- Communities (TEC) programme, which Established in 1901, Clontarf Aborigi-
tralia and Northern Territory) Suzy Gr- aims to improve industry relevant tech- nal College is a boarding school with the
dosic told Paydirt. nical (basic mechanical, electrical, and capacity to host up to a total of 190 stu-
computer) skills training and access to dents from as far as the Northern Territory
Cummins and Clontarf fostered a re- good paying jobs. down to Perth and beyond. The football-
lationship almost two years ago on the focused Clontarf Foundation is a partner
back of an initiative from the engineer- The programme seeks to develop a of the school.
ing firm and Komatsu Australia to invest replicable model that will lead to a strong-
in technical education for students from er and growing employment base in com- Clontarf is dedicated to providing disen-
disadvantaged backgrounds. munities across the globe. gaged Indigenous youth with educational
opportunities and the partnership with
Cummins and Komatsu lead a collec- Cummins has backed the TEC pro- Cummins is one pathway the school is ex-
gramme, which offers Clontarf students ploring to have its students career-ready.

Page 72 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

While Clontarf students involved in the Clontarf Aboriginal College principal Troy Hayter with Cummins South Pacific
TEC programme gain valuable hands- programme manager Western Region (Western Australia, South Australia and Northern
on practical experience in the automo-
tive engineering space, the soft skills Territory) Suzy Grdosic with Cummins engines at Clontarf’s training facility
nurtured during the programme are also
critical. pastorally, spiritually or academically and Clontarf positive and prosperous out-
from there, there is no doubt you will get comes would be achieved not only in the
Head of VET at Clontarf Nicole Clune that engagement and students will thrive current capacity but also technological
praised Cummins’ attention to detail in on that in those environments,” he said. developments Cummins was working on.
understanding the backgrounds and
needs of each individual Clontarf student Cummins has committed to the TEC “As we progress, I hope that we can
involved in the programme. programme with Clontarf whole-heart- grow together and that is the key, being
edly. US-based company chief execu- able to grow together,” she said.
“Cultural awareness is extremely im- tive Tom Linebarger recently visited the
portant and we have seen a willingness school and Cummins will support the pro- “Cummins has just bought battery
to engage with that increase. We do pro- gramme for the next decade. companies in the US and UK and we are
vide cultural awareness training specific looking at the electrification of trucks,
to our students’ needs because we are “He [Linebarger] really wanted to get to buses and other industrial equipment.
talking about Aboriginal teenagers who know our kids and know more about the There’s a lot of talk around training pack-
are a long way from home. The willing- impact the TEC programme can have for ages in regards to the existing packages
ness Cummins has shown to engage in our communities, in particular the Abo- and whether they meet industry stand-
cultural awareness specific to each indi- riginal communities. His visit was great ards. There is no doubt there will be train-
vidual year 11 and 12 student they have testament to what we are doing and also ing packages around electric motors, hy-
been working with has grown and I think showed the commitment that the com- brid motors and all these sorts of things
will continue to grow,” Clune said. pany has in providing authentic opportu- in the future.”
nities for our students with support and
Under the TEC programme, Clontarf with understanding of our communities,” – Mark Andrews
students spend four days at school and Hayter said.
one day on site with Cummins, which
also helps participants hone their in- Grdosic said there was no doubt that
terpersonal, social and communication through continued engagement with
skills and career attributes and emotional
intelligence.

Clontarf principal Troy Hayter said un-
derstanding the importance of enhanc-
ing the softer skills had been essential
in making the programme fruitful for all
parties.

“It all comes back to being student-
focused, which I think is the key,” Hayter
told Paydirt.

“That is where all this started from;
what did the students want, what was out
there and what opportunities could we
provide them with. One of the motivators
for students has certainly been the po-
tential for them to go into industries, such
as mining, where they know they have
family already working and it is an oppor-
tunity to engage with their community.

“In terms of the relationship we have
with Cummins, from the start they were
willing to build that relationship and en-
gage with our community and have been
so flexible and adaptive to the specific
needs of our students. Everything we do
here at Clontarf is student-focused and
looking at the needs of the student or
the individual, whether that be culturally,

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 73

MINERAL SERVICES

MMD puts halo around
40 year anniversary

In the fast-paced world of mining ser- destruction”. “The beauty of the sizer is that it is re-
vices, you’d think there’d be little time to In 2013, as HALO patron and to mark ally good for wet sticky clay. You can put
innovate and give back to good causes. rock through it, you can put roots through
the not-for-profit organisation’s 25th an- it, you can process anything through the
However, to mark its 40th anniversary niversary, Prince Harry replicated his sizer. Essentially, we have taken what we
of mining innovation, Mining Machinery mother’s visit to Angola to honour the use in crushing or sizing and applied it to
Developments (MMD) has taken its part- significant impact The HALO Trust was this rig but we’ve obviously implemented
nership with The HALO Trust up a notch having in clearing landmines and unex- things like metal detection. We have two
and designed life-changing equipment, ploded ordnance from war-torn countries. sizers which sit on top of each other to
which will become integral to the safe make sure that no landmines can pass
removal of landmines in war-torn places. MMD formed a partnership with The through the system and cause an issue.
HALO Trust in 2012 in order to apply its If any landmines go into that unit they will
The first unit was destined for Zimba- expertise in mineral processing to help either be detected or destroyed, so there
bwe and was expected to improve the the trust’s cause. is not human risk or interface,” Hillyer
timelines of clearing landmines, MMD said.
Australia Pty Ltd managing director Lee “All the engineering, all the costs of
Hillyer told Paydirt. manufacturing and everything else has Hillyer said de-
been donated. It is probably worth about velopment of the
“We have been demining equipment
working with HALO $2 million and rather than just handing sat within the com-
to develop a piece over the cash, we thought it was better pany’s mantra of
of equipment that to put our engineering skills to use to de- “pushing the enve-
can essentially take velop something that can actually make a lope” on innovations
the human inter- difference,” Hillyer said. in the mining sector,
face out of clearing with MMD set to in-
landmines. HALO After five years of development, which troduce a new surge
said this was go- attracted support from ABB Siemens, loader to market
ing to improve the Westbury and Conveyor Units Ltd, MMD’s next year.
timelines of clearing mobile Demining Sizer rig was unveiled
landmines tenfold,” in June and deployed to Zimbabwe. MMD is present
Hillyer said. all over the world
The mobile demining sizer rig is com- and one of its more
The painstaking prised of two MMD sizers which func- widely used pieces
and dangerous na- tions to process material, ensuring that all of equipment is the
ture of physically mines contained in the soil are crushed mobile in-pit crush-
clearing landmines or detonated. ing systems.
leaves a devastat-
ing legacy behind “The new surge
for people living in loader has been
potentially active sold already and it is
areas. being manufactured
Lee Hillyer ready for installation
The HALO Trust and commissioning
was founded in by May next year.
1988 as the global We know that a lot of mining companies
humanitarian crisis are looking at that with great anticipa-
caused by the remnants of war sparked tion and we are very excited because we
a response to curtail the issue, with the think that is a game-changer in the indus-
work initiated by The HALO Trust found- try,” he said.
ers – Colin Mitchell, Guy Willoughby and “We are pushing the envelope in re-
Susan Mitchell OBE – recognised by gards to autonomous equipment; all our
Princess Diana in 1997. equipment is pretty much autonomous.
This new piece of equipment will be fully
Princess Diana visited one of the sites autonomous. That is the future and we
The HALO Trust was working at in Ango- will continue to innovate and we are al-
la, which prompted the signing of the Ot- ways trying to do things better.”
tawa Convention; a treaty with the stated
ambition of all signatories doing “their ut- – Mark Andrews
most to contribute in an efficient and co-
ordinated manner to face the challenge
of removing anti-personnel mines placed
throughout the world, and to assure their

Page 74 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

Capital extends
from drilling to lab

Coming up to almost a decade of doing Capital Drilling has been active in Mauritania since 2010 and is now preparing
business in Mauritania, Capital Drilling to expand into lab services
Ltd has upped the ante in country and pre-
sented opportunities for both government would serve it well in new territory it was opportunity to do so could be looming.
and industry through an initiative incorporat- about to embark on. Nigeria could also be a destination for
ing MSA Labs.
“I think the customer service and inter- Capital Drilling given the company’s con-
Responding to the Mauritanian Govern- action we can provide is essential and is certed effort to expand its brand in West
ment’s strategy of become a services-ori- something that has been lost in the industry Africa.
entated country, Capital Drilling and MSA from some of the bigger players out there,”
are bringing laboratory services to Nouak- Siasios said. Capital Drilling started off as an East
chott. African-focused outfit 12 years ago, with its
“Quick turnaround times are also lack- major exposure to West Africa starting in
Capital Drilling managing director Brian ing in the industry given the amount of pro- 2010 in Mauritania.
Rudd told Paydirt there was top-down jects in play. Labs are being flooded at the
government support for the lab to be estab- moment, so we’re trying to streamline our Rudd dismissed the belief that Mauritania
lished in quick time. workloads so we can deliver the best pos- was a difficult and unsafe jurisdiction to op-
sible turnaround and quality also.” erate in, which is somewhat supported by
Rudd said he expected the lab to be in full the number of mining companies, predomi-
swing by Q1 2019. In addition to expanding its presence in nantly Canadians, in-country.
Africa through the Mauritania venture with
“The Government endorsed us and is Capital, MSA has a lab in Argentina coming Kinross Gold Corp, Algold Resources Ltd
keen to see this lab in operation. With the online and is already established in the likes and First Quantum Minerals Ltd are among
depth of logistics we are accustomed to by of Guyana and Nigeria and has franchise the well-known companies to have enjoyed
flying rigs all over the world and importing labs in Ecuador, Finland and Greenland. success in Mauritania, while Australia’s
gear from all over the place, we have a pret- Aura Energy Ltd is starting to reactivate its
ty big network and different providers we Siasios said there was an abundance activities in the uranium space and OreCorp
can use. That will definitely help whenever of gold samples flowing through the labs, Ltd is showing interest in the country.
samples need to be flown wherever they while there was a noticeable uptick in the
need to be. We will get better rates and can amount of work stemming from the battery Rudd said Australian companies were
be more efficient, while the Capital network minerals space. behind the ball on the opportunities in Mau-
will help increase business activity for MSA ritania.
as well,” Rudd said. “Even from reconnaissance programmes
and soil and geochem programmes, people “It is important that people spend a bit
“There is still a complete Chinese Wall are starting to pick things up in new areas of time there and get to know the culture
between Capital and MSA, with the com- and we sometimes even pick up on stuff and understand the business environment
panies retaining their own boards and man- that people didn’t know about,” Siasios said. there. I think that is a failing of a lot of peo-
agement structures. It is a strategic invest- ple, that is not a standalone, they fail in a lot
ment for Capital and we own about 62%; we Siasios said a vast range of commodities of other countries as well because they do
don’t want to have 100% of it.” were currently being discovered in Nigeria, not understand what culture they are deal-
which was somewhat of a surprise. ing with,” Rudd said.
Given that the lab will be operated by
MSA in Nouakchott, there is great potential “Nigeria has very diverse mineralisation “Being a smaller population, there are a
to service companies in countries such as and a lot of it. If you look at the balance of lot of relationships there and being tribal it
Guinea, Mali and Senegal. the periodic table, you wouldn’t expect there can be hard to understand. But, once you
to be quite so high quantities and if you look tap into that psyche you can be quite suc-
“Having the Government backing and up the new deposits that have been found cessful.”
having met with a couple of ministers, they there seems to be an abundance in Nigeria,
all want to increase Mauritania’s position in which is what we are seeing,” Siasios said. – Mark Andrews
West Africa as a service-oriented country.
They are willing to provide the necessary Nigeria has longed to add another pillar to
support to make that happen. There is suf- its economy outside of oil and the country’s
ficient reliable power and all the prep lab
people can be sourced from Mauritania, so
there is that human resource to tap into,”
Rudd said.

While sampling requiring high tech gear
will be conducted in Canada, the facilities in
Nouakchott will mean quicker assay turna-
round times for companies operating in
Mauritania and potential new clients in sur-
rounding countries.

MSA Labs senior vice president of global
operations George Siasios said the com-
pany’s 25 years-plus industry experience

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 75

regional roundup AFRICA

Vital goes for gabbro
in Burkina Faso

There are good grounds for debate geopolitical situation in country. announced an exploration target of
when a junior mining company claims By exiting Niger, Vital can spend more 45,000-855,000t @ 0.2-0.5% vanadium
to be “well positioned”. at Nahouri.
time entertaining potential projects, while
However, a company with more than also focusing on the new and existing op- The similarities between Western Aus-
$10 million cash presents a fair case to portunities it has in Burkina Faso. tralia’s geological terrain and that of West
be in control of its own destiny in what is Africa allows Australian companies, such
still a difficult time for the junior mining A review of Vital’s exploration strategy as Vital, to make quick assessments of
fraternity. in Burkina Faso after an extensive re- the ground that they are dealing with.
gional auger programme was conducted
Courtesy of the Watershed tungsten on all its permits in 2017. Follow up work to confirm the potential
sale in Queensland to Tungsten Mining Vital believes it has will involve further
NL earlier this year, Vital Metals Ltd has Strizek said it was the first time Vital XRF analysis and infill soil sampling over
$15 million and no shortage of offers of had conducted such activities, with XRF the strike length of the magnetic anomaly
what to do with it, according to managing analysis detecting signs of vanadium at Tiebele.
director Mark Strizek. potential at the Tiebele target at the Na-
houri project. Based on the exploration data on hand,
“We are cashed up and we have that Vital is targeting styles of mineralisation
ability now to look at that next opportuni- Soil sampling over a historical anomaly associated with a vanadium-titanium-
ty that comes along, whether it is working returned a maximum value of 0.19% va- magnetite body, similar to Canegrass
through our own projects or alternatively nadium. Based on the size of the mag- and Windimurra in WA’s Yilgarn Craton.
finding another one that could be a real netic anomaly, Vital has estimated a
company-maker,” Strizek told Paydirt. strike length of 1,500-1,900m at an aver- “We made sure we did our homework
age width of 50-150m. and had a good look at it before we put
“We are going to be careful and use that announcement out, but when you
our funds wisely, but importantly we have “There is some mafic/ultra-mafic con- start cross-referencing and checking
an opportunity and are being presented tact down there and our regional aero- around the reasons the projects are the
with potentially transformative projects. mag has identified what looks like a same in WA is because of the same type
Our experience with Watershed is that magnetite orebody, which appears to be of geological terrains,” Strizek said.
the execution risk falls away when you highly anomalous,” Strizek said.
look at the other party and know that they “That is our target case; layered gab-
have cash. As parties are coming to Vital “There is some auger on it, which is bros with magnetite. These projects tend
and bringing us projects, they know that still fairly wide spaced, but coincident to be larger scale, structurally a lot less
we can execute and move quickly should with our aeromag high and we are start- complicated than gold, so we are going
that be required.” ing to see vanadium popping up as well. to know very quickly if we are onto some-
We have been able to build a number of thing or not.”
Prior to the sale of Watershed, Vital bodies of evidence, which starts to give
demonstrated its ability to create oppor- you confidence that not only do you have Depending on the success of confirm-
tunities and work efficiently, with high- a magnetic high, but also a geochemical atory work on the size of the magnetic
grade results in the ilk of 4m @ 157 g/t signature. We subsequently followed up anomaly from the soil samples at Tie-
gold from the Bella Tondi prospect at to have a look and found we have gabbro bele, Vital could be drilling at Nahouri by
Bouli in Niger, a project it has subse- rocks, which is what you need.” the end of the year.
quently withdrawn from in light of the
While it is early days on the vana- – Mark Andrews
dium front in Burkina Faso, Vital has

Having exited Niger, Vital can spend more time entertaining
potential projects, while also focusing on the new and
existing opportunities it has in Burkina Faso

Page 76 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

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regional roundup LATIN AMERICA

Azure shows Oposura’s blue sky

Apositive scoping study has thrust Oposura base metal project “More importantly for the PFS, we will
Azure Minerals Ltd straight onto a Scoping study results put some extra infill holes into the re-
rapid development path for its Oposura source to upgrade confidence, particu-
base metals project in northern Mexico. NPV: $112 million larly in the areas of the orebody which
IRR: 76% will be mined in the first two years of
Azure released the study on October operation. It will result in a revising of
15, pointing to a project with a NPV of Life-of-mine (LOM) revenue: $506 million the resource and upgrading to a higher
$112 million, IRR of 76% and life-of- LOM EBITDA: $237 million level of confidence.”
mine EBITDA of $237 million. Payback: 16 months
Oposura’s current resource is split
Azure managing director Tony Rovira Average LOM C1 costs: 56c/lb zinc between indicated (2.1mt @ 8.2%
declared himself delighted with the re- Capex: $69.9 million zinc-plus-lead and 17.2 g/t silver) and
sult. inferred (800,000t @ 6.85% zinc-plus-
Mining rate: 500,000 tpa lead and 16.5 g/t silver).
“We are very happy with the results of Mill and flotation throughput rate:
the study. It showed the project is very Release of the scoping study has
robust both financially and economi- 295,000 tpa also prompted potential financiers and
cally and will make the company a lot of Average annual production: offtake parties to increase their interest
money,” Rovira told Paydirt. in the project.
19,000t zinc, 10,000t lead,
The scoping study forecast pre- 145,000oz silver Rovira spoke to Paydirt from Mexico
production capex of $69.9 million for a where he was already beginning dis-
500,000 tpa capacity project producing Mine life: 5.3 years cussions with offtake groups.
19,000 tpa zinc, 10,000 tpa lead and
145,000 ozpa silver over an initial 5.3 “I am in Mexico to meet with a bunch
years. of offtake parties,” he said. “All the main
players are really keen on the project
Azure has now launched immediately and have expressed an interest in dis-
into a PFS as it pushes to get Oposura cussing. We are arranging meetings,
– in Sonora, northern Mexico – to a de- site visits and the like now. We are con-
velopment decision by the end of 2019. fident we can negotiate good deals be-
cause there is some much competition
Rovira said PFS work would focus on for a concentrate of this quality.”
four key areas; capex improvements,
geotechnical studies, metallurgy and Financiers are also beginning to line
increasing confidence in the resource. up. Rovira said a promotional visit to the
Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit
“These are real Rolls Royce numbers, in Colorado in September saw Azure at-
particularly on the processing side, tract widespread attention.
where capex is top of the range, and we
think we can improve on them,” Rovira “We were getting a lot of interest from
said. banks, private equity groups and bro-
kers to fund this project. There is a real
Azure has already started geotech- shortage of near-production base met-
nical work and further met test work is als projects out there and at capex of
planned before the end of the year. $US50-60 million, we are really in the
sweet spot for these financial groups.
Rovira said the quality of zinc-lead Mexico also ticks a lot of boxes for
concentrates already being produced them.”
boded well for the project.
Such interest will fuel Azure’s plans
“We know already we can produce a to push Oposura’s development along.
concentrate product which has grades Rovira said the company planned to
well above the requirements of offtak- finalise the PFS by June 2019 before
ers,” he said. “It is already highly sought moving immediately into DFS with an
after because it is high-grade concen- eye on a 2020 target for first concen-
trate which is super clean. A number trate production.
of traders are currently sourcing lower
quality concentrate from across Central “We have got the funds to complete
and South America and blending it at the PFS,” Rovira said, pointing to a cash
their facilities here in Mexico. That will balance of $6 million at the end of the
make our high-grade, low impurities June quarter.
concentrate very attractive.”
– Dominic Piper
Azure’s infill drilling plans will see the
area between the East and West zones
tested for extensions to the mineralisa-
tion.

Tony Rovira

Page 78 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

LATIN

AMERICA

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regional roundup

Con Zinc
takes flight

Consolidated Zinc erating in 2015 and thought with a then noticed the pro-
Ltd will enter $100,000 fit-out and the introduction of ject’s previous own-
2019 with renewed ore sorting we could make it work,” Mar- er, Grupo Mexico,
purpose after a year wood said. had abundant tailings
of transformation has capacity nearby. We
seen the company Instead of pushing immediately to- began talking to them
reach producer status. wards 200,000 tpa, Consolidated would and they were interest-
now start pilot operations almost imme- ed in what we were doing
At the start of 2018, Con- diately for capex of around $US5 million because Consolidated Zinc
solidated was looking some- before expanding after seven months. had discovered an additional
what directionless following the 1mt of ore where they thought
departure of longstanding manag- A positive internal study led the Con- there was none.
ing director Will Dix. Since acquiring solidated board to agree to Marwood’s “So, we wanted to talk tailings, they
the Plomosas zinc-lead project in 2015, strategy and the company set about wanted to talk exploration and it culmi-
the company had dewatered and began financing the modest capital require- nated in us striking a toll-treatment and
refurbishment of the existing under- ments. offtake agreement that was completed
ground development and had increased within a week of the BFS.”
resources through the discovery of the “The board looked at it and decided Under the agreement, Consolidated
Tres Amigos deposit. to go past the PFS/DFS stage and get a will process 2,500 tpm batches of Plo-
contract for mining and plant refurbish- mosas ore through Grupo Mexico’s
However, despite release of a positive ment and get it funded. We then rolled Santa Eulalia plant with the concentrate
scoping study in October 2017, there was into a BFS,” he said. product sold to the latter’s Potosi smelter.
indecision over how to take the project For Marwood, the toll-treatment and
to development. The board was leaning Funding was secured via convertible offtake agreement offers Consolidated a
towards a plus-250,000 tpa operation notes issues to chairman Stephen Copu- low-risk, fast return option for Plomosas.
using a newly built plant but with only los ($1 million) and existing major share- “It has a superior timeline and similar
968,000t in resources, the company holders ($250,000) over 12 months at rate-of-return to shareholders but with a
found itself in a predicament; push on 10% while a mining contract was signed significantly lower capex,” he said.
with development or return to exploration with experienced local mining contractor By the end of September, operations
in order to provide sufficient tonnes for Servimin Sara. were up and running with 1,245t mined
the scale of operation. from September 19-30, 256t of which
The one obstacle remaining was suf- had been hauled to surface, in line with
When experienced mining engineer ficient tailings storage capacity but the initial schedule of 100 tpd.
Brad Marwood, who had been advising thanks to a fortuitous meeting this hurdle Marwood has been pleased with the
the company since the start of the year, ultimately turned into a springboard for start to underground development but
joined as chief executive in March he im- Consolidated. has set his sights much higher.
mediately set to work defining a simpler “This isn’t the finishing line, it is just the
path to production. “We had been told to estimate 4-6 starting line,” he said. “Now that we have
months to receive tailings dam expan- a contractor on site, we can do explora-
“Ongoing costs were a real driver,” sion approval,” Marwood said. “But, I tion development which allows us to drill
Marwood told Paydirt. “I recognised the extensions.
early on that we needed to go into pro- “In Mexico, a 2.5m by 2.5m drive costs
duction as soon as possible because around $US600, as opposed to prob-
the standing costs, including dewatering ably $US3,000 in Australia. So, it makes
and monitoring of the 30km of under- sense to do ore strike drives to block out
ground workings, was around $100,000 the orebody and drill down into Level
a month; that was prohibitive.” 7 and up into Level 5 much faster and
much cheaper than if we were doing it
The outsized plant was still a problem from surface.”
so Marwood turned his attention to alter-
native solutions.

“I didn’t feel the 200,000 tpa plant was
serving the best interests of the company
so I looked at the pilot plant we had op-

Page 80 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

LATIN AMERICA

The company’s exploration plan will years and with that we could build a Marwood said. “We believe our skills set
see definition drilling of Tres Amigos 500,000 tpa operation within four years. can be used to increase value by bringing
above Level 7 as well as extensional drill- If the exploration success is greater, then into production or expanding operations
ing along strike and down-dip. The explo- it could be even better,” Marwood said. for groups who don’t have the resources
ration team will also complete mapping of to do so themselves.
all decline shafts, adits and points of ac- A company capable of processing
cess to the known mineralisation across 500,000 tpa of high-grade zinc-lead ore “Get our credentials by doing things
4km of strike. (the current Plomosas resource grades right, producing consistently and being a
15.9% zinc-plus-lead) would produce good corporate citizen and the opportuni-
Regional exploration will also return to sufficient cash flow to fund further devel- ties will present themselves.”
Consolidated’s agenda. opments.
– Dominic Piper
“We believe there is potential for “We have identified a number of oppor-
3-3.5mt to be defined in the next few tunities close by in the base metal space,”

Consolidated Zinc has forgone further exploration in
favour of a swift refurbishment of existing underground
infrastructure at its Plomosas zinc-lead mine in Mexico

Bolivia to pick new junior
partner on lithium

Bolivia will choose a new junior partner scale. President Evo Morales has sought turn the lithium into cathode material re-
in the coming weeks to help indus- to keep the metal from being exported quired for battery production before ship-
trialise its lithium deposits from among merely as raw material. ment, Montenegro said.
seven companies that submitted propos-
als, including the German firm ACI Sys- In April, Bolivian state lithium company As with Uyuni, YLB will maintain major-
tems GmbH, according to a government YLB announced it was teaming up with ity control of the JV and require its partner
official. privately-owned ACI Systems to develop to guarantee future sales of lithium, Mon-
its massive Uyuni salt flat. The project, tenegro said. Bolivia will not necessarily
The other offers to work with Bolivia to expected to cost at least $US1.2 billion, take a majority stake in any battery fac-
tap two lithium-rich salt flats – Coipasa includes plans to build a lithium hydroxide tory its partner builds abroad, he added.
and Pastos Grandes – were submitted plant and a factory for producing EV bat-
by Chinese companies and two Russian teries in Bolivia. Echazu and Montenegro declined to
firms, Luis Alberto Echazu, Deputy Min- estimate how much lithium Coipasa and
ister of High Energy Technologies, told For Coipasa and Pastos Grandes, Bo- Pastos Grandes held. But Echazu said
Reuters in an interview. livia is not requiring that interested com- the investment would likely be as large,
panies build a battery factory in Bolivia, or larger, than the project at Uyuni, which
“The evaluation will take at least 2-3 YLB’s manager Juan Carlos Montenegro is estimated to contain at least 10mt of
weeks, maybe a bit more,” Echazu said, said. lithium.
adding that the decision would likely be
made at the end of October or early No- “It’s no longer restricted to just Bolivia,” Bolivia has hired two companies to cer-
vember. Montenegro said in a separate interview. tify lithium reserves at Uyuni and expects
“In other words, we’re willing to be part- a figure to be announced late this year,
Bolivia is believed to have one of the ners outside Bolivia.” Echazu said.
largest lithium reserves in the world, but
has yet to produce the metal on a large However, Bolivia’s partner on Coipasa – Mitra Taj and Daniel Ramos, Reuters
and Pastos Grandes will be required to

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 81

regional roundup

Perth, Western Australia 9
November 12-13

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ASIA

Options galore
for Nusantara

Nusantara Resources Ltd has set its $US40 million free cash every Exploration efforts are continuing
sights on landing a strategic invest- year and good returns of 20%; at Awak Mas
ment partner for its Awak Mas gold pro- that puts the project in a pretty
ject in Indonesia by early next year. good position. And then on top Australians have forgotten how good In-
of that, we’ve already identi- donesia is as a mining entity.
Having just completed a robust DFS fied some significant upside in
which flagged average production of another three years of produc- “We are getting nothing but good sup-
100,000 ozpa over an initial 11-year mine tion [from the Tarra deposit] and port from the community and all levels of
life at Awak Mas, Nusantara will look to also some increasing grades government in pushing ahead with this
finalise terms with a list of potential part- [of up to 7%] that add another project. I actually argue that we’ve got
ners for the $US162 million project over $US50-100 million NPV.” a lower risk mining jurisdiction in terms
the coming months. of regulation and investment than most
Spreadborough said the other places in the world.”
Nusantara managing director Mike company would continue to
Spreadborough said the company enhance the economics of the Spreadborough said the company was
opened talks with groups from Indo- project through conversion of also keen to ramp up exploration efforts
nesia, China, Australia and elsewhere more indicated resources into on some parts of the Awak Mas property
while wrapping up the DFS, which was measured status, as well as fur- which have not been touched for almost
released early last month. ther metallurgical test work to two decades.
lift recoveries from the current
“All of them are a little bit different and 91%. “Our primary objective is to look at
all of them bring something different to near-mine [opportunities] and we define
the table,” Spreadborough told Paydirt. Nusantara will also undertake that as roughly 3km from the proposed
further engineering studies on processing plant,” he said. “Within that
“Some will be able to bring with them the tailings storage facility, in- area there are 4-5 very exciting pros-
connections that will help with project fi- cluding dynamic and dam break pects that have been found in the past,
nancing, others might have connections analysis, in a bid to optimise its but have had no work done in 18 years.
or synergies in construction, or synergies capital and sustaining costs.
in mining contracting work. “We’re now getting in there, doing sur-
Indonesia has not been a face sampling and trenching and we’re
“They are all miners in their own right, happy hunting ground for ASX- overlaying that with some geophysics.
so they bring an understanding of the listed companies in years past, That work is really highlighting that those
mining environment. With the DFS out, but Spreadborough does not prospective areas have absolutely high
we’re now formalising that process with expect that to be the case for Nusantara. potential.”
the aim that early next year we can com-
plete a transaction for a strategic part- “In March we signed a new contract of – Michael Washbourne
ner.” work (CoW) agreement with the Govern-
ment of Indonesia and that has two key
According to the DFS, Nusantara will elements,” he said. “One is that it reaf-
generate a post-tax NPV of $US152 mil- firmed that we’re the only tenement hold-
lion with IRR of 20.3% and life-of-mine ers of this CoW, so that takes away any
revenue of $US1.33 billion, assuming a ambiguity that people might have on who
gold price of $US1,250/oz. owns the tenements.

Nusantara will need to fork out $US146 “The second one is that the new agree-
million to build the operation, including a ment reaffirmed that we’ve got no divest-
2.5 mtpa processing plant, plus $US16 ment requirement until 10 years after
million of pre-production mining expendi- production, so that brings forward great
ture. A further $US29 million of project investment stability. On top of those two,
sustaining capital will also be required and the project already having environ-
over the life-of-mine. mental and construction approvals com-
pleted by the Government of Indonesia
C1 costs are estimated at $US643/oz, and now we’ve put the DFS out, all of
with AISC of $US758/oz. First production those elements come together to say
is slated for 2021. this project is both financially robust and
development ready.
Awak Mas boasts a healthy 1.1 moz
reserve within a 2 moz resource which “The groups we’re talking to see In-
will host two open pits, including the Salu donesia as a historically great place to
Bulo satellite deposit. do mining. They actually see that it is a
mature regulatory environment and they
“Not a lot of projects that are coming don’t see any issues operating or devel-
out on the ASX have the length of tenure oping projects in Indonesia. I think some
and gold production that we do,” Spread-
borough said.

“If you just sit back and think, an 11-
year operation is going to deliver around

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 83

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jobs at Mt Arthur contract extension at BHP’s Mt Arthur derground mine in Queensland.

CIMIC Group’s mining services arm, coal mine, Hunter Valley The TR3000 raise boring machine is
Thiess, has secured a new $1.2 billion designed for ease of operation and main-
contract from BHP Ltd to continue pro- in Mozambique, which will require up to tenance, providing a high level of reliabil-
viding services at the Mt Arthur coal op- 50,000 workers on site at peak construc- ity. It has a modular design, which makes
eration in the Hunter Valley. tion. disassembly of the major components –
for inspection, transport or repair – easy
The new five-year contract builds on Despite the Government’s expecta- to achieve.
the group’s existing operations as well tions that the LNG projects will employ
as additional services as mine operator a high percentage of locals during the Custom features incorporated on this
of the southern end of Mt Arthur, namely construction phase, significant numbers machine include an upgraded proprietary
the Ayredale and Roxburgh pits. of expatriates will still be required. gearbox design, which allows for flexibil-
ity in alignment when raise boring and
Under the new contract, Thiess will Under the RBR-Kuiper alliance, Kui- adding drill pipe, and powered wrenching
perform mine design, planning and per’s global database of tradespeople at the drive-head and worktable to make
scheduling services, drill and blast op- will be combined with RBR’s database of adding and removing drill strings a safer
erations, overburden removal and coal local workers and offered to clients using operation.
mining. RBR’s Mozambican labour hire licence,
which is a pre-requisite to providing ser- Terratec has numerous raise boring
The scope of works will create up to vices such as those envisaged by the al- machines in operation around the world,
300 permanent, locally-based jobs. liance partners. chiefly in Australia, Canada, Mexico, Co-
lombia, Peru, Argentina and the US.
Powering up Mozambique Construction of the onshore projects is
expected to start in the first half of next Terratec’s Hobart team has completed
Labour hire and training specialist RBR calendar year, meaning major contracts factory acceptance testing of a new
Group has signed a binding MoU with Kui- will be issued in coming months. raise boring machine for Glencore’s
per International Pte Ltd. George Fisher mine in Queensland
Terratec raises the bore
The proposed alliance will seek to for Glencore
provide tradespeople to the impending
$US50 billion LNG construction boom Terratec’s Hobart workshop has suc-
cessfully completed factory acceptance
testing of a custom TR3000 raise boring
machine which will be deployed at Glen-

NUCLEUS

Nucleus Mining Logistics

Providing turn-key logistics and supply chain solutions into Africa

Page 84 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

www.nucleussc.co.za

Orica’s new BlastIQ digital blast ground coal mining services provider UGM. Greenbushes since 2011, has also been
optimisation platform Bis takes control of UGM’s mining ser- awarded a subcontract for drill and blast
services at BHP Ltd’s South Flank pro-
Orica unveils new vices, conveyor installation, underground ject. The eight-month contract is valued
BlastIQ digital platform plant hire businesses and diesel services at about $11 million.
workshops. The transaction scope does
Orica, the world’s largest manufacturer of not include the Highwall mining and Pipe- Meanwhile, WestStar Industrial Ltd’s
commercial explosives and innovative blast- lion businesses, which the vendors will engineering contractor business SIMPEC
ing systems, has unveiled its next generation continue to own and operate under the AD- Pty Ltd has received contract scope ex-
BlastIQ digital blast optimisation platform. DCAR brand. tensions and purchase orders totalling
about $1.8 million from MSP Engineering
BlastIQ is designed to optimise blasting Headquartered near Newcastle, UGM for additional works at Greenbushes.
outcomes by integrating data and insights was founded in 1997 and has a workforce
from digitally connected technologies across of about 200 employees with operations in The scope extensions and purchase
the drill and blast process. Queensland and New South Wales. orders will see SIMPEC supply and install
site-wide concrete footings, including
Solutions enabled by BlastIQ can deliver Meanwhile, Bis has won a contract ex- earth works, the final tails pump and pip-
predictable and sustainable improvements tension to continue providing load and haul ing system and chute fabrication works
to reduce the overall cost of drill and blast services at Glencore’s Newlands coal mine for the Chemical Grade Plant 2 project,
operations, improve productivity and safety, in Queensland’s Bowen Basin. which will more than double the capacity
and facilitate regulatory compliance. of the operation to 134 mtpa.
Bis will remain at the operation until at
“The downstream impact of variable and least 2021, having been continuously on MSP is the head contractor for the pro-
poorly controlled blast outcomes today can site for the past 22 years. ject which is due for commissioning in Q2
impact as much as 80% of the total mine 2019.
processing costs,” Orica chief commercial Action extends stay,
officer Angus Melbourne. SIMPEC on board DRA preferred contractor
at Greenbushes for Colluli build
“The new BlastIQ platform enhances blast
performance and outcomes for customers NRW Holdings Ltd’s wholly owned DRA Global has been confirmed as
by seamlessly connecting data under a sin- subsidiary Action Drill & Blast has been the preferred EPCM provider for Dan-
gle platform. Soon the platform will link geo- awarded a 15-month extension by Talison akali’s Colluli potash project in Eritrea.
scientific, blast modelling and design data Lithium Pty Ltd for services at the Green-
with measured field operations data, opti- bushes mine, Western Australia. Subject to completion of detailed con-
mised blast delivery and advanced learning tract terms, DRA will be responsible for
for continuous improvement.” The contract extension, valued at an all aspects of design, project manage-
estimated $13.5 million, incorporates an ment, procurement, construction man-
Bis acquires UGM, wins increased scope of works for blast hole agement and supervision, as well as
extension at Newlands drilling, grade control and blasting ser- commissioning of the process plant and
vices. Action, which has been based at associated infrastructure, including pro-
Bis has expanded its underground busi- vision of all temporary construction facili-
ness by acquiring leading Australian under ties.

DRA will also be responsible for
awarding major contracts such as early
works, earthworks, structural, mechani-
cal, piping, electrical and instrumenta-
tion works, laboratory and permanent
camp.

Danakali said executing an EPCM
contract was a requirement of its poten-
tial debt providers for Colluli.

Nucleus Mining Logistics pNrUovCidLeEsUhSigh levels

of service to clients seeking world-class
supply chain management solutions.

greenfield exploration / construction projects / operational logistics

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 85

rDReIgLLioBInTSal roundup Safely Exploring Your Future bostech.com.au

Carlow Castle Egan Street is confident of adding to its 401,000oz @ 8.8 g/t gold resource at Rothsay
sounding good
18.74 g/t from 149.8m, 0.6m @ 2.87g/t from Western Australia continues to deliver.
Artemis Resources Ltd has announced 284m and 0.55m @ 1.84 g/t from 167.1m. On the back of September drilling results
that high-grade cobalt, copper and gold
mineralisation has been extensively drilled Two further diamond holes have been from Viago of 3.35m @ 37.4 g/t gold from
over a continuous strike of 1.2km from a completed, one infilling the Woodley’s 606.8m, 2.8m @ 19 g/t from 571.65m and
target of more than 12km strike at the Car- central resource and a second testing the 1.5m @ 23.9 g/t from 566.3m, Bellevue re-
low Castle project, 30km from its Radio Hill Clyde and Miners Shears prospects to the ported broad-spaced intercepts of 3m @
processing plant. north. 85.9 g/t from 597m, including 0.5m @ 445
g/t, 6.4m @ 27.9 g/t from 587.6m, includ-
All drill results have now been received Meanwhile, the extent of the Woodley’s ing 2.8m @ 62.8 g/t, 6.9m @ 18 g/t from
from the 24,655m drilling programme, with East shear was confirmed with intersec- 535.9m, including 0.6m @ 203.3 g/t and
a new resource expected to be delivered tions of 0.97m @ 129.2 g/t gold from 73m, 2.4m @ 36.3 g/t in October.
this quarter. 0.4m @ 14.8 g/t from 131.7m, 0.3m @ 9.9
g/t from 83.55m in the foot-wall of Wood- A maiden inferred resource of 8mt @
Significant cobalt-rich results included ley’s East and 0.95m @ 1.29 g/t from 22 g/t for 550,000oz gold was declared at
16m @ 0.94% cobalt, 7.62 g/t gold and 75.75m on Woodley’s East. Viago last month.
3.51% copper from 36m; 17m @ 0.61% co-
balt, 1.86 g/t gold and 0.05% copper from First Au strikes high
88m; 6.5m @ 2.32% cobalt, 23.44 g/t gold
and 10.35% copper from 47m. First Au Ltd has struck an intersection
of 4m @ 393 g/t gold from 52m from the
Gold-rich highlights included 11m @ second phase of aircore drilling at Gimlet
14.07 g/t gold, 0.79% cobalt and 3.41% cop- project near Kalgoorlie.
per from 32m; 16m @ 7.62 g/t gold, 0.94%
cobalt and 3.51% copper from 36m; 22m @ The intersection is 20m east from the dis-
6.1 g/t gold, 0.55% cobalt and 2.35% cop- covery hole result of 8m @ 1.24 g/t gold.
per from 133m.
The latest intersection came from the
Copper-rich intersections of 11m @ recently-completed 44-hole, 2,952m pro-
3.41% copper, 14.07 g/t gold and 0.79% co- gramme to identify mineralised shear zones
balt from 32m; 33m @ 2.11% copper, 2.68 trending north from the adjacent Teal gold
g/t gold and 0.28% cobalt from 117m; 11m project owned by Intermin Resources Ltd.
@ 2.07% copper, 5.12 g/t gold and 0.43%
cobalt from 109m. Viago takes Bellevue Bellevue managing director Steve Parsons
over 1 moz gold
Egan edges on at Rothsay
The company-making Viago discovery
Resource extension drilling has indicated at Bellevue Gold Ltd’s namesake project in
the potential for additional resources at
Egan Street Resources Ltd’s Rothsay gold
project in Western Australia.

Diamond drilling tested the extension of
the Woodley’s shear position to the south
of an offset of the lode position that was
interpreted from magnetics. The drilling
programme of 14 holes for 3,840.7m has
been completed with half of the southern
extension holes returned and intersections
of 1.02m @ 23.96 g/t gold from 242.48m,
2.58m @ 22.6 g/t from 150.55m, 0.7m @

Celebrating 25 years

Page 86 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

Safely Exploring Your Future bostech.com.au

Sheffield onboard the the potential for high-value assemblage of Quicksilver barrels
Night Train zircon, leucoxene, HiTi leucoxne and il- into nickel
menite.
Sheffield Resources Ltd could be in a po- A significant hit of 36.6m @ 1.01% nickel
sition to release a maiden resource for the Meanwhile, results from a further 42 from 49.5m at depth has been reported by
Night Train deposit early next year. holes completed from regional drilling Golden Mile Resources Ltd at the Garard’s
have returned 37.5m @ 3.56% HM from prospect within the Quicksilver nickel-cobalt
The company is buoyed by recent drill 1.5m, including 16.5m @ 5.49% HM from project in Western Australia’s south-west.
results from Night Train, 20km south-east 21m at Cold Duck; 19.5m @ 2.93% HM
of the Thunderbird project in Western Aus- from 19.5m at Porphyry Pearl; 34.5m @ The intersection was reported from as-
tralia’s north. 2.64% HM from 58.5m at Cisco and 7.5m says received from three diamond drill
@ 5.78% HM from 19.5m at Nomad. holes completed at Garard’s.
Some of the latest results included 27m
@ 5.29% HM from 49.5m, 7.5m @ 6.46% Sheffield now has eight zones of miner- Resource work at Garad’s had started
HM from 27m, including 4.5m @ 9.7% HM alisation, including Thunderbird and Night and a maiden resource announcement
from 28.5m, 12m @ 4.54% HM from 18m Train, along a 100km-long trend. Mineral from Golden Mile is imminent.
and 6m @ 8.92% HM from 12m. assemblage test work is expected to be
completed in Q1 with aircore drilling to
Formal test work has not yet been com- follow.
pleted, however, the company is bullish on

Sheffield was expecting results from the
remaining 28 holes drilled at the recently
completed Dampier regional drilling
programme at the time of print

Industry leaders in Aircore
Deep hole Reverse Circulation
Experienced in complex remote exploration drilling

29a Clayton St, Bellevue WA 6056

www.bostech.com.au 08 9250 4252

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 87

comings and goings

Tony James Edmund Czechowski and Mick Evans has been pro- vice-president of projects for
Roj Jones have stepped moted to the board of Em- BHP Billiton.
Galena Mining Ltd has ap- down as directors of Comet erald Resources NL as an ex-
pointed Tony James to Resources Ltd. David Pren- ecutive director. Evans replaces Orocobre Ltd has appointed
replace Olly Cairns on the tice has accepted an offer to non-executive director Justin Martin Perez de Solay as
board. James was most re- join the company’s board, with Tremain, who has stepped managing director and chief
cently managing director of Hamish Halliday assuming the down from the board to pursue executive. He will be based
Carbine Resources Ltd and role of non-executive chair- other interests. in Argentina and his initial fo-
previously held the same posi- man. cus will be on optimising the
tion at Atherton Resources and George Ventouris has re- performance of the Olaroz JV
Mutiny Gold. High Grade Metals Ltd has signed as a director of and delivering the company’s
appointed Simon Francis Apollo Consolidated Ltd, but will growth plans for the Stage 2
BHP Ltd asset president as its new chairman. Francis, continue to be involved with the expansion and lithium hydrox-
Edgar Basto has been ap- a chartered accountant, re- company in an executive con- ide plant in Japan. Meanwhile,
pointed acting president of The places Steve Formica who will sulting capacity. Courtney Pratt has announced
Chamber of Minerals and En- continue as a non-executive his intentions to retire from the
ergy of Western Australia fol- director. The Austria-focused Gary Feitz has resigned as board at the company’s AGM
lowing the departure of Jeroen company has also appointed managing director of New later this month.
Buren. Adrien Wang as a non-execu- Age Exploration Ltd after eight
tive director and company sec- years with the company. Neil Auto industry entrepreneur
Mike Dunbar has resigned retary, replacing the roles held Hutchinson, Stephen Layton and design icon Henrik
as managing director of by David Palumbo. and Joshua Wellisch have Fisker has joined First Cobalt
Gascoyne Resources Ltd af- joined the company’s board fol- Corp. Fisker is chairman and
ter almost nine years with the Peter Christie has been ap- lowing the departures of Fietz chief executive of California-
company. Chief financial offic- pointed non-executive and Michael Amundsen. based electric vehicle devel-
er Mike Ball, who joined Gas- chairman of Mount Ridley oper OEM Fisker Inc.
coyne this year from Alkane Mines Ltd following the resig- Founding directors David Sin-
Resources Ltd, has been ap- nation of Michael Pedley. gleton and Chris Indermaur Judith Downes has been ap-
pointed interim chief executive. have stepped down from their pointed as a non-executive
Sally-Anne Layman has also Birimian Ltd has appointed positions at Poseidon Nickel Ltd director of CleanTeq Holdings
assumed the chairperson’s experienced lithium spe- after 10 years of service. Geoff Ltd. Downes was previously
role, with Mike Joyce to contin- cialist Anand Sheth as the Bradshaw has been appointed chief financial officer of Alu-
ue as a non-executive director. company’s strategic marketing interim chairman to replace mina Ltd and worked at ANZ
adviser. Meanwhile, Mark Pitts the role vacated by Indermaur Bank for 12 years in various
Mike Dunbar has been appointed as com- while a replacement is sought. financial and accounting roles,
pany secretary, Alan Cumming Felicity Gooding, a nominee of including as chief financial of-
David Kelly has resigned as as acting chief financial officer 19% shareholder Squadron Re- ficer and chief operating officer
a non-executive director of and Franck Bizouerne as ex- sources Pty Ltd, and Karl Paga- of the bank’s institutional divi-
Ironbark Zinc Ltd. ploration manager. nin, a nominee of 20% share- sion.
holder Black Mountain Metals
Karen O’Neill has been ap- Francisco Barreto has joined Pty Ltd, have been appointed Jeffrey Markoff has joined
pointed chief financial of- the board of Orinoco Gold new directors of Poseidon. Axiom Mining Ltd as a non-
ficer and company secretary of Ltd as the second nominated executive director. Markoff is a
Kingsrose Mining Ltd. representative for Cartesian Kingswest Resources Ltd has senior partner with the Legats
Royalty Holdings Ltd, along- appointed David McEntag- Group, a Melbourne-based
side Andrew Allan. gart as company secretary. He business consulting and in-
replaces Stephen Brockhurst, vestment company, and he is
Heath Hellewell has stepped who will continue as a non-ex- also managing director of Ack
down as executive chair- ecutive director. Pty Ltd, Axiom’s largest share-
man of Capricorn Metals Ltd, holder.
but will continue as managing Andrew Nai has resigned as
director. Non-executive direc- a non-executive director of Hammer Metals Ltd has ap-
tor Debra Bakker has assumed Northern Mining Ltd after five pointed Ziggy Lubieniecki
the chairperson’s responsibili- years in the role. as a non-executive director.
ties. Lubieniecki was chief mine
Jennifer Purdie and Les geologist for Plutonic and ex-
Richard Beazley has joined Guthrie have joined Neomet- ploration manager for Austral-
Troy Resources Ltd as a als Ltd as non-executive direc- ian Platinum Mines prior to his
non-executive director. A min- tors ahead of the company’s role as a founding director of
ing engineer with more than 30 planned spin-out of the Barram- Gold Road Resources Ltd and
years of experience, Beazley is bie titanium-vanadium project the discovery of the 6.2 moz
currently interim chief operat- into a new ASX-listed entity. Gruyere gold deposit. Hammer
ing officer at Sandfire Resourc- Purdie is the chief executive of has also promoted exploration
es NL and a director of Altair Adani Australia Renewables, manager Mark Whittle to the
Mining Consultancy. while Guthrie was most recently new role of chief operating of-
ficer.

Page 88 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

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leftfield

Kirkland and Integra
stand behind veterans

Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd joined with or- support the participation of both The Ride to Survive in support of Veterans
ganisers of Veterans Stand Together the Australian and Canadian Stand Together covered 3,600km from
and fellow sponsor Integra Resources, as riders in the event. The Austral- Brisbane to Sydney, with an estimated
the lead sponsor of the Ride to Survive, ian riders include veteran Matt
a bike ride covering three states from Jamison and his son Alfie, who total of 2,295 changes in direction, 9,220m
Brisbane to Sydney to raise awareness is representing families of the of uphill sections and 9,240m downhill
of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among military on the epic journey. Re- sections. Pictured (L-R): Jason Lozon
veterans and first responders. turned military service personnel on the (rider), Ion Hann (Fosterville Gold Mine
ride will be joined by first responders rep-
Starting on October 2 in Brisbane, the resenting Australian police, emergency GM), Ian Holland (VP, Australian Opera-
20-day, 3,600 km charity ride involved 10 services and security personnel. tions, Kirkland Lake Gold), Jason Ville-
veterans from five countries – Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, UK and US – with The two Canadian riders are veter- neuve (rider)
the end point being Sydney for the Invic- ans Jason Lozon and Jason Villeneuve,
tus Games, to be presented by Prince sponsored by both Kirkland Lake Gold erations Ian Holland said the Australian-
Harry. and Integra Resources. Sergeant Lozon, Canadian co-operation involved, and the
35, has 17 years’ military service and de- importance of the cause, made the Vet-
The riders’ campaign included regular ployed on three tours to Afghanistan, and erans Stand Together Ride a perfect fit
stops in regional communities, including also has been a Vancouver Firefighter for for the company.
Bendigo, home to Kirkland’s Fosterville the last five years. Corporal Villeneuve,
gold mine, Victoria, to raise awareness 46, has 12 years’ military service and de-
and funds to support veterans’ mental ployed on two tours to Afghanistan.
health and employment opportunities.
Kirkland vice president Australian op-
Kirkland has provided the funding to



INDEX

ACI 81 Doray 18 Kingsrose 88 Pursuit 38
Adani 88 Kingswest 88
Agrimin 15 Egan Street 86 Kinross 75 Reward 14-16
Albemarle 56-57 Kirkland Lake 64 Rio Tinto 6, 8
Algold 75 Emerald 88 Koza 30 Rox 59
Alta 20, 22-27
Anglo American 7, 9 Emmerson 65
AngloGold 45
Apollo 88 European Metals 21, 39
Ardea 60
Ark 69 Evolution 65, 88 Legend 57, 59 Salt Lake 15
Artemis 86 Lonmin 30 SAMIM 22, 24
Aura 75 Exxaro 7 Sandfire
Axiom 88 Sayona 88
Azure 78 First Cobalt 88 Metals X 55 Scotgold 8
First Quantum 75 Mincor 58 Sheffield
Minmetals Sirius 21, 31
Galane 18 MinRes 8 South32 87
Mount Ridley 12 St Barbara 20
Galena 88 88 St George
Sumitomo 6, 7, 9
Gascoyne 88 69
46
Gladiator 69 Neometals 88 60
New Age 88
Barrick 9 Glencore 5, 58, 84, 85 Newcrest 69
Newmont 6, 69
BCI 15 GME 58 Nickel Mines 49
Northern Minerals 11
Bellevue 71, 86 Gold Fields 69 Northern Mining 88 Talison 85
Northern Star 69 Talga 21, 33
Berkeley 40 Golden Mile 87 Nusantara 83 Territory
Tianqi 65
BHP 5, 6, 9, 10, 43, 47, 56-57, Gold Road 88 TNG 10, 56-57
Troy
58, 84, 85, 88 Greenland Minerals 36 Tungsten 68
88
Birimian 88 76

Black Mountain 5, 53, 54, 58 Hancock 20
Heron 60
Cameco 66 Hexagon 12 OM Holdings 60 Vale 60
Capricorn 88 High Grade 88 OreCorp 75 Vimy 66
Carbine 88 Orocobre 8, 88 Vital 76
Cassini 50 Impala 5 Orinoco 88
CleanTeq 88 Oz 50
Comet 52, 88 Independence 5, 42-43, 44-45,
ConocoPhillips 60
Consolidated Zinc 80-81 56, 59, 69 Walkabout 20-21, 28-31

Infinity 20, 37 Panoramic 5, 48, 53, 58 Western Areas 5, 42-43, 46, 59
Parkway 34
Inpex 60 Pilbara 56 Wolf 20, 41
PNX 64
Ironbark 88 Poseidon
Prodigy 53, 54, 58, 88
Dalradian 30 69 YLB 81
Danakali 85
Davenport 34 K+S 17
Kalium Lakes 15, 17

Page 90 NOVEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT

ALTA ZINC LTD

Mine Development
Manager

ITALY

Site-Based Contract Position in Northern Italy
Historic MVT Zinc/Lead Mining Operation

Alta Zinc Ltd is an ASX-listed company that has operated in Italy since early 2015.

The company is now seeking to engage a suitably qualified and experienced mining professional to
assist with plans to re-start mining at the historic Gorno Zinc Project in Lombardy province, near
Bergamo in northern Italy. The successful candidate will have significant responsibility for guiding and
executing the mine re-development utilising the existing infrastructure.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE SOUGHT

- Eligible to reside and work in Italy – fluent in the Italian language.
- Post-graduate qualifications in Mining Engineering or a related field.
- Membership of relevant internationally recognised professional bodies.
- At least 10 years prior relevant experience at a senior management level.
- Ability to manage a site based team of admin & geology personnel.
- Experience in the base metal sector – zinc/lead deposits preferred.
- Knowledge of MVT deposits and geological settings desirable.
- Experience in both modern underground mining methods & historic operations.

For further information, please refer to www.altazinc.com/career
Eligible applicants should send a detailed resume to [email protected]

altazinc.com

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT NOVEMBER 2018 Page 91