Dart metallurgy tests revive Unicorn
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Dart Mining (ASX: DTM) claims to have turned around the fortunes of the company’s Unicorn deposit, located near Corryong in Victoria.
Dart has approached Unicorn from a different perspective, utilising metallurgical test work, which it says has demonstrated the ability to produce saleable concentrates of both copper and molybdenum across the Unicorn deposit.
The company declared the results to be an unambiguous turnaround for the Unicorn project and enhances its prospects of development to production.
Dart Mining explained the test work results – replicated by two independent laboratories – were achieved using a number of commercially-proven extraction processes that are used at the Hellyer copper mine in Tasmania and other mines throughout the Lachlan Fold Belt in Australia.
The company described the results as being a major step towards establishing commercial viability of, what it considers to be, Victoria’s most exciting mineral project.
The extraction of marketable concentrates from sulphide material means the twin metallurgical challenges that previously threatened the Unicorn project have now been reversed.
Saleable metal has been extracted from the oxide material and marketable concentrates of molybdenum and copper have been extracted from the more plentiful sulphides across the deposit.
Laboratory test work is continuing to optimise results.
“The important aspect is that these results were achieved using conventional processes, greatly reducing both technical and commercial risk,” Dart Mining chairman Bruce Paterson said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
As a result of this successful testwork, Dart is now in the process of developing an indicative draft process flowsheet which includes recoveries from all mineralised zones within Unicorn.
Ongoing detailing and design to optimise economic outcomes, will form a key element of the current prefeasibility studies that are expected to be completed early in the first half of 2015.
Website: www.dartmining.com