Overview
Stage | Permitting |
Mine Type | Open Pit |
Commodities |
|
Mining Method |
|
Mine Life | 27 years (as of Jan 1, 2023) |
The Lac Knife Project is designed as a stand-alone business operation to produce a line of high purity flake graphite concentrates destined mainly for the North American and European battery anode materials industry.
Lac Knife is unique in that all-natural flake graphitic concentrates produced with flake size above 200 mesh (75 microns) size are more than 98% Cg. This allows Focus to divert finer-sized products that would typically be difficult to sell due to their flake size to higher value-added products such as spherical graphite for batteries, due to the high carbon content of 98% carbon. |
Source:
p. 12
The Lac Knife Project is owned 100% by Focus Graphite Inc.
Contractors
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Summary:
Deposit Type
The mineralisation of the Project is consistent with the description of a crystalline flake graphite deposit. These types of deposits are described (Simandl and Kenan, 1997) as being commonly hosted by porphyroblastic and granoblastic marbles, paragneiss and quartzites. The alumina-rich paragneiss and marbles in upper amphibolite or granulite grade metamorphic terrains are the most favourable host rocks. Highest grades are commonly associated with rocks located at the contacts between marbles and paragneisses and deposits are thickest within fold hinges. Minor feldspathic intrusions, pegmatites, and iron formations may also contain disseminated natural flake graphite.
The Lac Knife deposit corresponds to the metamorphic equivalent at the upper amphibolite to granulite facies of the Menihek black shales, plus tectonic remobilisation into higher grade zones in fold hinges. Simandl and Kenan stated that the grade and tonnage of producing mines and development projects can vary substantially.
Mineralisation
Graphite occurs within the Nault Formation as a paragneiss which is a metamorphic equivalent of the graphitic black shales in the Labrador Trough located further north. There is no indication of secondary hydrothermal or other transported, post-metamorphic deposition. The present distribution and crystallinity of the graphite units are due to the Grenville high grade metamorphic events. However, deformation favoured the thickening o ........
Summary:
The Project will be developed based on a conventional open-pit, shovel and truck and drill and blast mining operation using mobile mining equipment powered by diesel engines. The Company is studying the development of a carbon free mining operation using zero-emission vehicles as these become more readily available and competitively priced.
The mining method selected for the Project is a conventional open pit, truck and shovel, drill and blast operation. Vegetation, topsoil and overburden will be stripped and stockpiled for future reclamation use. The ore and waste rock will be mined with 10 m high benches, drilled, blasted, and loaded into rigid frame haul trucks with hydraulic excavators.
A topsoil and overburden stockpile has been designed on the west side of the open pit to the south of the plant site. A waste rock pile has been designed between the plant site and the overburden stockpile. The waste rock pile will be built in 10 m high lifts and compacted by a bulldozer.
A mine plan was developed which supplies the required quantity of ore to produce 50,000 tonnes of concentrate per year for the 27-year life of mine (LOM) for the open pit. Mining will begin in a starter pit which will supply the majority of the run of mine ore for the first five (5) years of the operation. The purpose of the starter pit is to maximize the feed grade and minimize the strip ratio during the early years of production. The total material mined per year duri ........
Source:
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Flow Sheet:
Summary:
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Source:
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Reserves at March 6, 2023:
The Mineral Resources are applying a cut-off grade of 4% Cg.
The open pit Mineral Reserves are estimated using a cut-off grade of 5.1 % Cg.
Mineral Resources are reported inclusive of Mineral Reserves.
Category | Tonnage | Commodity | Grade | Contained Graphite |
Probable
|
9,310 kt
|
Graphite
|
14.97 %
|
|
Indicated
|
12 Mt
|
Graphite
|
15.34 %
|
1.7 Mt
|
Inferred
|
0.6 Mt
|
Graphite
|
16.9 %
|
0.1 Mt
|
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