Overview
Stage | Permitting |
Mine Type | Open Pit |
Commodities |
|
Mining Method |
|
Processing |
- Sulfuric acid (reagent)
- Agitated tank (VAT) leaching
- Magnetic separation
- Mechanical evaporation
- Roasting
|
Mine Life | 15 years (as of Jan 1, 2019) |
Latest News | Neometals sets path for Barrambie development October 4, 2019 |
Summary:
The ferrovanadium titanium (Ti-V-Fe) deposit occurs within the Archaean Barrambie Greenstone Belt, which is a narrow, north-northwest to south-southeast trending greenstone belt in the northern Yilgarn Craton. The linear greenstone belt is about 60 km long and attains a maximum width of about 4 km. It is flanked by banded gneiss and granitoids. The mineralisation is hosted within a large layered, mafic intrusive complex (the Barrambie Igneous Complex), which has intruded into and is conformable with the general trend of the enclosing Greenstone Belt From aeromagnetic data and regional geological mapping, it appears that this layered sill complex extends over a distance of at least 25 km into tenements to the north and south of M57/173 that have been acquired by Reed. The layered sill varies in width from 500 m to 1,700 m.
The sill is comprised of anorthositic magnetite-bearing gabbros that intrude a sequence of metasediments, banded iron formation, metabasalts and metamorphosed felsic volcanics of the Barrambie Greenstone Belt. The metasediment unit forms the hanging-wall to the layered sill complex.
Exposure is poor due to deep weathering, masking by laterite, widespread cover of transported regolith (wind-blown and water- borne sandy and silty clay), laterite scree and colluvium. Where remnant laterite profiles occur on low hills, there is ferricrete capping over a strongly weathered material that extends down to depths of 70 m.
Ti-V-Fe mineralisation occurs as bands of cumulate aggregations of vanadiferous magnetite (martite)-ilmenite (leucoxene) in massive and disseminated layers and lenses.
Within the tenement the layered deposit has been divided into five sections established at major fault offsets. Cross faults have displacements that range from a few metres to 400 m. The water table occurs at about 35 m below the surface (when measured where the laterite profile has been stripped).
Summary:
Mining of the Barrambie deposit will be completed with conventional excavator and truck, supported by ancillary fleet with all works provided by a professional mining contractor including mobile plant, maintenance and drill and blast. The orebody consists of multiple steep dipping lodes which will need to be mined selectively on 2.5m flitches within the central ore zones to minimise dilution and 5m benches within the eastern ore zone and waste zones. Mining fleet has been scoped utilising a primary 32t excavator with CAT 777F 100t trucks. It is anticipated that all material will require drill and blast with an average powder factor of 0.35 within the waste zones increasing as the pattern tightens within the ore zones. Grade control is forecasted for 70% of total pit volume with Reverse Circulation drilling to be conducted on a 12.5m by 6.25m pattern. Ore will be hauled to a central ROM and fed into the ROM bin using front end loaders. Low grade ore will be stockpiledon the surface before rehandling to the ROM later in the mine life. Waste will be hauled to planned external waste rock landforms.
Dilution was applied by applying a 500mm skin (to both hanging wall and footwall) to mineralisation with V2O5> 0.6% and re-blocking the model to 2.5m E by 10m N by 5m RL. This was deemed to be an appropriate selective mining unit (“SMU”) when considering blast movement, grade control patterns and loading accuracy.
Infrastructure requirements for open pit mining include maintenance workshop for all mobile equipment, offices, crib rooms and amenities, fuel farm, water dams, and de-watering systems as required.
Processing
- Sulfuric acid (reagent)
- Agitated tank (VAT) leaching
- Magnetic separation
- Mechanical evaporation
- Roasting
Flow Sheet:
Summary:
The plant has been designed to treat 3.14 Mt/a of ore to produce 6,337 tonnes per annum of ferrovanadium (“FeV80”).
Design Criteria include:
- Design life -structures - 50 years; mechanical plant - 20 years;
- Operating regime - 24 hours/day, seven days/week basis, nominally 7,800 hours/year, allowing 960 hours for scheduled and un- scheduled maintenance works;
- On-site ore beneficiation to create a low silica (<2.4% Si) concentrate;
- Sodium salt roast process;
- Continuous leach, desilication, AMV precipitation refinery operation to produce ammonium metavanadate (AMV) filter cake;
- Sodium sulphate recovery through crystallisation to enable its recycling as roasting salt (subject to further ongoing economic and technical evaluation);
- De-ammoniation and calcining of the AMV to produce a vanadium pentoxide flake; and
- Ferrovanadium Smelter.
Recoveries & Grades:
Commodity | Parameter | Avg. LOM |
V2O5
|
Recovery Rate, %
| ......  |
V2O5
|
Head Grade, %
| 0.78 |
FeV80
|
Recovery Rate, %
| ......  |
FeV80
|
Head Grade, %
| 0.78 |
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Projected Production:
Commodity | Product | Units | Avg. Annual |
V2O5
|
Flake
|
t
| 9,235 |
FeV80
|
|
t
| ......  |
Operational Metrics:
Metrics | |
Stripping / waste ratio
| ......  |
Waste tonnes, LOM
| ......  |
Ore tonnes mined, LOM
| ......  |
Annual processing capacity
| ......  |
* According to 2019 study.
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Reserves at May 22, 2019:
Category | Tonnage | Commodity | Grade |
Probable
|
39.9 Mt
|
Titanium
|
15.1 %
|
Probable
|
39.9 Mt
|
V2O5
|
0.78 %
|
Probable
|
39.9 Mt
|
Fe2O3
|
46.4 %
|
Probable
|
39.9 Mt
|
Al2O3
|
12.5 %
|
Probable
|
39.9 Mt
|
Silica
|
17.6 %
|
Indicated
|
187.1 Mt
|
Titanium
|
9.61 %
|
Indicated
|
187.1 Mt
|
V2O5
|
0.46 %
|
Inferred
|
93 Mt
|
Titanium
|
8.31 %
|
Inferred
|
93 Mt
|
V2O5
|
0.4 %
|
Total Resource
|
280.1 Mt
|
Titanium
|
9.18 %
|
Total Resource
|
280.1 Mt
|
V2O5
|
0.44 %
|
Corporate Filings & Presentations:
Document | Year |
...................................
|
2019
|
...................................
|
2019
|
...................................
|
2018
|
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News:
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