Early due diligence on a proposed nickel laterite project in the Philippines has indicated it has the potential to produce, at a low cost, at least 18,000 tonnes of the base metal per annum in a mixed hydroxide intermediate product.

During 2010 the company behind the almost US$900 million project issued a National Instrument 43-101 measured and indicated resource of 32.6 million (dry metric) tonnes grading 1.04% and 0.05% cobalt as well as an inferred resource of 1.7 million tonnes at respective grades of 1.04% and 0.04%.

Mindoro Resources is conducting a feasibility study into the development of an integrated nickel-cobalt laterite project at Agata in Mindanao Island’s Surigao District.

A scoping study completed in 2010 considered processing options using a combination of high pressure acid leach (HPAL) and atmospheric leach (AL) technologies.

Preliminary metallurgical test work has already been performed on selected ore blends, demonstrating what the junior believes is an excellent leaching performance for HPAL of limonite and transition ores and AL for the saprolitic material.

Given this, the company has set itself an exploration target of an additional 50-70 Mt grading 0.9-1.2% nickel for its other Surigao District tenements, which is situated within 30 kilometres north of Agata’s current resource base.

Located within the northern part of the Agusan del Norte province in Mindanao’s north east, Agata sits within the western range around 10km south of Lake Mainit and falls within the political jurisdiction of the municipalities of Tubay, Santiago and Jabonga.

According to a recent project update presented at the ALTA Nickel Conference in Western Australia, Boyd Willis of the Australian-based Boyd Willis Hydromet Consulting, along with Mindoro Resources’ Jon Dugdale and Tony Climie, said preliminary bench scale testwork on the project’s ore – which was conducted by the Philippines-based Enlin Stainless Steel Corporation – included AL, HPAL, saprolite neutralisation/iron removal as well as mixed hydroxide precipitation (MHP).

Further testwork was then carried out at SGS Lakefield Oretest facilities in Perth, WA.

Following this, a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) was completed by Mindoro during March this year, which evaluated an integrated HPAL/AL saprolite neutralisation project treating 1.79Mt of ore per annum.

Under this regime, the nickel is recovered by hydroxide precipitation yielding about 18,000 tonnes per annum of the base metal and 930tpa of cobalt combined in the MHP product.

Process plant costs were developed from detailed estimates for similar nickel projects and locations.

Factored estimation techniques determined capital costs.

All up, the project’s total capex (using a contingency of plus-minus of 35%) was US$894.3 million.

Its ramp up was expected to be three years.

“In the process plant, limonite ore is treated by conventional HPAL and saprolite ore is treated by a parallel AL circuit,” Boyd, Dugdale and Climie explained.

“The process design for the leach plant will be based largely on the hydrometallurgical route proven at Moa Bay in Cuba for five decades and at the …. Coral Bay nickel project in the Philippines since 2005.

“The leach flowsheet incorporates high pressure acid leaching and counter-current decantation.

“Limonite and low magnesium saprolite ore will be treated by a parallel AL circuit.

“The PEA design throughput has been based on one million tonnes of ore feed to HPAL (resulting in a circuit similar in scale to that employed at Coral Bay).

“This was chosen because both autoclave trains at Coral Bay had very fast ramp-ups to full production.

“Autoclave throughput is based on 31 per cent solids in the autoclave feed slurry (after indirect stream heating).”

Boyd, Dugdale and Climie said Agata had a significant number of competitive advantages.

Aside from the circuit’s excellent metallurgical response, it was in an established mining precinct, there were no inhabitants or forest in the resource area, a large regional population occupied the area, it was within close proximity to established infrastructure and deepwater ports, an abundance of fresh water was available, while there was also a large supply of limestone on site.

In addition, Agata sat within short shipping distance to China and other potential Asian markets.

THE BOURSE WHISPERER : Institutional and sophisticated investors have answered the tin rattling of a couple of junior exploration plays.

Castle Raises $4.8 Million to Fund Exploration

Castle Minerals has received commitments to raise $4.8 million through the issue of 13.88 million fully paid ordinary shares at $0.35c per share.

Key participants in the raising included existing long term Castle shareholders and new shareholder, Resource Capital Funds.

Resource Capital Funds is a mining-focused Denver based private equity firm, which has taken a 4.3% interest in Castle.

Castle has earmarked the funds to advance gold exploration on its 11,000 square kilometre land holding in Ghana and follow up results reported from its new Baayiri and Kandia gold discoveries in north-west Ghana where drilling recently recommenced.

Castle Minerals managing director Mike Ivey said the company was very pleased by the support received from its existing shareholder base and welcomed the addition of Resource Capital Funds to the register.

“With over $8 million in cash, we will be able to accelerate our exploration efforts for 2011/12, particularly on our Wa Project which is one of the most prospective unexplored gold belts in West Africa,” Ivey said in the company’s ASX announcement.
 
The placement was managed by Southern Cross Equities and will be completed under Castle’s 15% placement capacity.

Beadell resources completes $30M capital raising

Beadell Resources has also been on the receiving end of some hearty commitments from institutional and sophisticated investors.

These were to subscribe for shares in connection with the placement to raise gross proceeds of $30 million at an issue price of $0.85 per share.

The heavily oversubscribed placement was jointly managed by Southern Cross Equities and Ord Minnett.

The net proceeds will be put towards Beadell’s equity portion of the total cost of construction of the CIL plant at the Tucano gold project.

The company will also use the raised funds to continue aggressive resource extension and regional exploration targeting an additional 3 million ounces of gold to take Beadell’s total resource position to 7 million ounces of gold over the next two years.

“We are very pleased with the strong support we received from existing and new shareholders,” Beadell Resources managing director Peter Bowler said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“This is recognition of the quality of our gold and iron ore project in Brazil as we quickly move towards becoming a significant gold producer in the first half of next year.

“This modest raising, undertaken at a minimal discount to our current share price, aligns with the company’s strategy of maintaining a conservative balance sheet whilst minimising dilution for our shareholders.”

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: The regular game of musical chairs continues within the boardrooms across the resources industry. The Whisperer pokes his head down the corridors of power to take a quick look at some of the chairs to have recently been vacated and to find out which ones have been filled:

Completion of A$12 million Share Placement results in new non-executive director

Western Desert Resources has appointed Scott Perrin as a non-executive director.

The appointment is part of a share placement transaction of 40,000,000 Western Desert ordinary shares; equal to 19.33% of Western Desert’s issued share capital, to Permat Holdings, an entity controlled by Perrin and Bruce Mathieson.

Norton Gold Fields restructures its board

Norton Gold Fields announced the resignation of company Chairman, Mark Wheatley effective 20 July 2011.

Non-executive director Mark McCauley, who had previously advised he would step down on 31 August 2011, has brought forward his resignation with immediate effect.

“In the past year, the Board has successfully led Norton through a number of corporate challenges,” Norton Goldfields managing director Andre Labuschagne said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“With a number of the difficult corporate decisions successfully behind us, the company’s core focus is to maximise the value from its existing asset portfolio and to positively and innovatively drive performance of the flagship Paddington operations.

“It is therefore an opportune time to restructure the board to oversee this next stage in the company’s development.”

Resignation of CEO Northern Energy Corporation

Keith Barker tended his resignation from the position of chief executive officer of the company.

Mr Barker has been Northern Energy the CEO since its listing on the ASX some six years ago.

Non-executives come…non-executive goes.

Mongolian-focused coking coal explorer Aspire Mining announced the appointments of Andrew Edwards and Mark Read as non- executive directors, effective 1 July, 2011.

Edwards is a recently retired senior partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers after a career spanning 35 years in Perth, Auckland and Sydney.

He served as managing partner of the Perth practice for five years and led the Perth advisory business.

He currently serves as a non-executive director of Mermaid Marine Australia, Nido Petroleum and is non-executive chairman of MACA. He is also a past director of Calibre Global.

Read is the immediate past CEO and managing director of ASX listed coal engineering and technology company Sedgman.

At Sedgman, Read was responsible for an overseas expansion strategy that led Sedgman to position itself in emerging high-grade coal regions including Mongolia and Mozambique.

Prior to his appointment as chief of Sedgman, Mr Read was general manager of Mining and Metals and executive director of engineering services firm Sinclair Knight Merz, where he was employed for 20 years.

Aspire also announces the resignation from its board of Russell Lynton-Brown as a non-executive director, a position he has held since 2006.

Lynton-Brown was involved in Aspire’s acquisition of the company’s flagship Ovoot coking coal project.

Aspire chairman David McSweeney said the change in the composition of the board was a natural evolution for the company.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: The on-going exploration program of Perth-based exploration and mine development play Mutiny Gold has delivered new high-grade gold intersections.

The new intersections have been received from the north and from the south of existing resources at the company’s Deflector gold deposit.

The most northerly hole drilled as part of the current program was located 140 metres north of the new high grade discoveries and 270 metres to the north of the current resource boundary.

This hole delivered an encouraging result of three metres at 9.9 grams per tonne gold, which the company said highlights the potential that remains along strike at Deflector.

The company’s belief in the exploration potential of the Deflector Corridor was strengthened by high grade intersections located in the Northern Deflector shear structure, and downplunge of the Southern portion of the resource.

Mutiny said this also provides it with confidence the existing 590,000 ounce gold resource can be significantly increased with ongoing drilling.

“It is particularly encouraging that there are high grade intercepts being achieved in multiple locations,” Mutiny Gold managing director John Greeve said the company’s ASX announcement.

“The results indicate likely extensions to the planned open pit and, also, importantly, confirm the down plunge continuity with depth of high grade shoots.

“These will be included in underground mine planning. It is management’s belief that the recent exploration success will lead to a meaningful lift in the Deflector resource which will justify an expanded mining case to be considered as part of the feasibility study, currently in progress.”

The results received from the first 26 holes of Mutiny’s ongoing drilling program, which recommenced in early May, have again added length to the Deflector deposit mineralisation that now extends at least over 850m.

These results will be incorporated into the revised resource estimation to be carried out at the conclusion of the current RC and diamond drill programs.

Mutiny has already begun preparing for further RC drilling to follow up the high-grade intersections with a second diamond drill rig being sent to site to accelerate the Deflector central underground drill program.

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: ASX and New Zealand Exchange-listed Australian coal mining company Bathurst Resources has come to a collaborative agreement with Solid Energy New Zealand Limited.

The agreement has been struck through Bathurst’s wholly owned subsidiary company Buller Coal Limited.

Buller Coal and Solid Energy will collaborate as each business seeks to develop their respective export coal resources on the Denniston Plateau.

Buller Coal is currently establishing its Escarpment mine project on the Denniston Plateau.
 
 “This is a landmark Agreement for both companies as it will ensure efficient use of resources, including water, and also avoid unnecessary duplication of assets on the Plateau,” Bathurst Resources chief executive officer Hamish Bohannan said in the company’s ASX announcement.

 “The Agreement demonstrates both companies commitment to ensuring that mining on the Plateau is carried out in a sustainable manner with as minimal environmental impact as possible.

“Our two companies will continue to work together to ensure coal mining, processing and transporting off the Plateau is done in the most efficient and optimal manner.”

The agreement provides for:-

– Collaborative mine planning and designs on the Plateau where the two companies have common boundaries;

– Coal transport agreement for up to 500,000 metric tonnes, or 25% of BCL’s expected coal production via rail through to the Port of Lyttelton;

– Both parties working together to identify and implement arrangements to enable each to have sufficient water available for their respective coal mining operations on the Denniston Plateau;

– Solid Energy granting BCL the right to locate some of its facilities inside areas covered by Solid Energy’s coal mining licences on the Denniston Plateau; and

– Solid Energy having access to BCL’s infrastructure, on appropriate commercial terms, to avoid unnecessary duplication of processing & coal transportation facilities.