Mining Breaks

The need for modifications to the steam injection system in the leach circuit has not delayed the ramp-up of Australian lithium technology company Lepidico’s L-Max pilot plant in Perth.
After the first feed of lepidolite concentrate to the plant on June 25, ramp-up to continuous 15kg/hr target concentrate feed rate is expected within two weeks.

Millennium Minerals has produced first gold following the successful commissioning of the Stage 1 sulphide plant expansion at its Nullagine project in Western Australia, completing an upgrade expected to underpin strong uplifts in production and head grade in the current half-year.
Chief exec Peter Cash says Millennium’s significant investment in long-term growth initiatives is expected to spark a return to positive cash-flow by end-July.
A new mining sequence at the Bartons Underground has lifted ore production to over 1,000tpd regularly, with the grade profile within expectations.

Ningbo Shanshan, one of the world’s largest integrated suppliers of lithium ion battery materials, has taken an 11.8% interest in West Australian lithium producer Altura Mining through the acquisition of 251M shares from former shareholder Shaanxi J&R Optimum Energy.
Altura MD James Brown says its new cornerstone investor, one of the early movers in the battery materials market, has a market capitalisation of $A2.5B.
JRO has been selling its Altura shares for several months. The latest transaction completes the divestment process and removes a significant market overhang.

Mid-tier West Australian copper-gold producer Sandfire will add the near-term T3 project in Botswana and a significant Kalahari copper belt landholding to its global development pipeline with agreement to acquire explorer MOD Resources.
Under a scheme of arrangement valuing the target company at $A167M, Sandfire is offering a choice of 0.0664 shares or 45c for each MOD share. The cash component is capped at $41.6M.
MD-CEO Karl Simich says the deal will combine Sandfire’s operating and development expertise, including its operating DeGrussa mine, and strong balance sheet with MOD’s dominant landholding on the Kalahari copper belt in Botswana. The T3 project is scheduled to start construction in 2020, heading for first production in 2021.
MOD shareholders will vote on the scheme in Oct.

West Australian developer Piedmont Lithium is optimistic of identifying North America’s largest spodumene orebody after lifting total mineral resources at its wholly owned Piedmont project in North Carolina, USA to 27.9Mt @ 1.11% Li2O, containing 309,000t lithium oxide or 764,000t lithium carbonate equivalent.
The JORC-compliant indicated-inferred resource is 47% higher than its April 2019 estimate. Piedmont says the total lithium resource is attributed to spodumene mineralisation.
It includes 25.1Mt @ 1.09% Li2O in the Core property, with 74% shallower than 100m and 97% shallower than 150m.
President-CEO Keith D Phillips says the project’s scale, high-grade, strong mineralogy and metallurgy, and superior location, support its unique strategic nature.

Australian explorer Ardea Resources has advanced plans to spin off a package of gold and base metal tenements in the Lachlan Fold Belt of central NSW into a new IPO, Godolphin Resources.
Godolphin will hold 100% of near-term openpit development opportunities at the Lewis Ponds gold-zinc and Mount Aubrey gold deposits, with a long-term strategy seeking bulk tonnage mineral assets akin to region's Cadia-Ridgeway and Northparkes porphyry gold-copper mineralisation.
Ardea aims to raise $A4.5-8M by issuing up to 40M shares at 20cps,. Existing Ardea shareholders will receive 30M free Godolphin vendor shares plus priority IPO rights.
The spin-off will allow Ardea to focus on its flagship Goongarrie nickel cobalt project and other WA assets.

West Australian explorer Echo sees more opportunities for its Yandal gold project 85km NE of Leinster after unveiling updated JORC resources of 91,600oz (1.4Mt @ 2.1g/t) for the 70%-owned Mt Joel mineralisation. Over 98% is classified as indicated.
Mt Joel holds maiden resources of 73,800oz for the Tiger deposit and 7,300oz for the Adder deposit plus an upgrade to 10,400oz for the Taipan deposit. All are open along strike and at depth.
Total Yandal resources rise to 1.8Moz (28.6Mt @ 2g/t), up from 1.4Moz in its Aug 2018 BFS.
CEO-MD Victor Rajasooriar says the Mt Joel deposits, 15km from its Bronzewing processing facility, open new opportunities to enhance the Yandal mine plan.

Orion Minerals has paved the way for financing, concentrate off-take and mine construction talks after its BFS established a strong economic case for its proposed 2.4Mtpa underground and openpit development of the Prieska copper-zinc project in South Africa’s Northern Cape region.
The study outlined $A402M start-up capital expenditure for a 9.7-year operation delivering total sales of 357,000t CuEq and 1,233,000t ZnEq in concentrate at AISC of $5,470/t Cu and $1,582/t Zn, against forecast sale prices of $9,785/t Cu and $2,830/t Zn.
It calculates undiscounted pre-tax free cash-flows of $1.1B, NPV of $574M and IRR of 38%.

While it still backs a proposed takeover by Barrick Gold, Acacia Mining has not hesitated to tackle its 63.9% parent over its views on the target company’s assets and crippling dispute with the government of Tanzania.
Barrick last week justified the terms of its proposed $US787M share-swap offer by strongly disputing Acacia’s valuations of its three Tanzanian mines and dismissing its chances of negotiating an agreement with the government.
In response, Acacia defends the accuracy of its life of mine plans and put much of the blame for the breakdown in its relationship with the Tanzanian authorities on Barrick’s intervention.

Emerging coal producer Resgen is clear to start talks on finalising terms for a R4.2B mine construction package for its Boikarabelo coal mine in the Waterberg coalfield, South Africa after gaining credit approval from the third and final member of its proposed lending syndicate.
Resgen says it will seek board approval for the package once it has finalised a common term sheet with all members of the syndicate.
Negotiations for R750M funding for the project’s 44km rail link from the mine to the Transnet main line are also advanced, and will need to raise working capital currently estimated at R500M.

Salt Lake Potash has begun pumping high-grade SOP brine after completing construction of commercial-scale brine evaporation ponds at its Lake Way project 15km south of Wiluna in Western Australia.
The evaporation process through the Australian summer will provide initial feed salts for the process plant at the state’s first commercial SO4 operation.
CEO Tony Swiericzuk says data on the methodology and costs will feed into the project BFS for a commercial-scale 200,000tpa development due for completion in the Sept qtr.

Volt Resources says it has additional flexibility for the development funding process of its $US40M Bunyu flake graphite development in Tanzania with a $US1M working capital investment by European investor Lars Bader.
CEO Trevor Matthews says Bader’s investment – a placement of 20.8M shares at $A0.021ps for $US0.3M and $0.7M loan facility plus 25.5M options exercisable at $A0.04 – will assist Volt to finalise a note offer on the Dar es Salaam exchange.
It’s also continuing to progress a bond issue in Mauritius and advancing discussions with an African development bank and institutional investors in North America and Africa.

Diversified Australian explorer Hylea Metals is targeting a company transformation with its acquisition of a 65% interest in the mothballed Kayelekera uranium project in Malawi from Paladin Energy.
While aiming to continue advancing its Hylea cobalt project in NSW, the company says it will re-engineer Kayelekera’s mining and processing to lower capital and operating costs and bring it back into production.
Hylea will issue shares worth $4.8M over 3 years, up to $5M gross revenue royalty and replace Paladin’s existing $US10M environmental bond.
Paladin says the Kayelekera sale will enable it to prioritise the restart of its Langer Heinrich uranium mine in Namibia.

Cupric Canyon has awarded a 5-year underground mining services contract worth about $A800M to hard-rock underground specialist Barminco on the Zone 5 orebody at its Khoemacau copper-silver mine in Botswana.
Barminco is expected to start site work in Dec, subject to Cupric’s closing of project financing, on mine development, underground infrastructure development, diamond drilling and mine production at an initial 3.6Mtpa copper ore.
US-based private equity firm Cupric is targeting first production in 2021 from the Kalahari Desert mine, producing an initial 60,000tpa copper - increasing to 100,000tpa – and 2Mozpa silver.
The contract award was welcomed by diversified mining services company Ausdrill as further endorsement of its late-2018 acquisition of Barminco.

START THE WEEK: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
With world copper demand expected to double in the next 20 years, it’s going to take some smart thinking and significant technological investment for the mining sector to keep up.
John Fennell, president of the International Copper Association Australia, told the Copper to the World conference in Adelaide last week the need to deliver 26Mtpa by 2040 - much of its from existing mines already over 75 years old – will force producers to rethink how they operate to get more from less.
“We are talking automated mines at least 2km deep, urban high tech control hubs, armies of sensors, robot machines and all powered by clean energy,” Fennell said.
He warned the roll-out of copper mining technology has not been as rapid or widespread as first predicted.
“That means miners will need to get more from less, or, send them searching much deeper than they have ever gone before and in riskier, hard to access areas.” 
Technologies like artificial intelligence, big data, virtual or augmented reality, intelligent software, robotic machinery and vast armies of advanced sensors would be essential to produce safer, greener copper with minimal impact on people and the environment.
“Getting copper out and up from to 1-2km underground would have been science fiction once,” Fennell said.
“But running a completely automated mine with intelligent machines and haulage from an urban centre is now possible.”
Processing all the ore underground was also closer, using new catalytic refining methods and automated sorting, with clean energy powered systems taking the ore to the surface for intelligent transport.
The copper mines of the future would rely on terabytes of data streamed from sensors to manage, monitor and make the ore.
The workforce would also become more diverse and technologically attuned, operating from an urban base.
The challenge facing the copper mining industry was underlined by Hal Stillman, the International Copper Association’s Washington-based director of technology development and transfer.
“Developing reliable industrial technology requires a lot of time and financial investment to reduce risks and assure performance,” Stillman said.
“That’s not a simple task in mining which has seen only a few major changes in extraction and processing.
“It’s an urgent problem. The world is demanding more and more copper, but is also demanding it be greener, cleaner and smarter, with minimal impact on the environment.”

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• SOLGOLD WIN AFTER ECUADOR COURT REJECTS ANTI-MINING PETITION 
• ALTURA MINING HEADS TOWARDS NAMEPLATE AT PILGANGOORA LITHIUM 
• CHAMPION IRON FS BACKS BLOOM LAKE EXPANSION PLAN 
• MACA $12M BACKS BLACKHAM RESOURCES’ WILUNA EXPANSION 

COMMODITIES
LME ($US), Jun 21 –
Aluminium 1,743.50
Copper 5,941.00
Zinc 2,542.50
Nickel 12,135.00
Lead 1,894.00
Tin 19,130.00
Cobalt 28,000.00
Gold 1,395.80
Silver 15.275

COMEX ($US), Jun 21 –
Gold 1,403.00
Copper 2.702
Silver 15.415

NYMEX ($US) 62% Fe CFR China, Jun 21 -
Iron ore 107.54

LBMA price data ($US), pm Jun 21 –
Platinum 803.00
Palladium 1,500.00

CALENDAR
Conferences –
Jun 24-25: Deep Mining 2019, Johannesburg (South Africa)
Jun 24-25: Metal, Mining and Metallurgy Conference 2019, Tokyo (Japan)
Jun 25-26: Investment Showcase, Gold Coast (Australia)
Jun 26-27: Mining Investment North America, Toronto (Canada)

Public holidays –
Jun 23: Victory Day (Estonia)
Jun 23: Midsummer Eve (Latvia)
Jun 23: Statehood Day (Moldova)
Jun 24: Corpus Christi (Colombia)
Jun 24: Midsummer Day (Estonia, Latvia)
Jun 24: St John's Day/Day of Dew (Lithuania)
Jun 24: Farmer Day/Inti Raymi Day (Peru)
Jun 24: Carabobo Battle (Venezuela)
Jun 25: Statehood Day (Croatia)
Jun 25: Independence Day (Mozambique)
Jun 25: Statehood Day (Slovenia)
Jun 26: Independence Day (Madagascar)
Jun 26: Flag Day (Romania)
Jun 26: Independence Day (Somalia)
Jun 27: Independence Day (Djibouti)
Jun 27: Day of National Unity (Tajikistan)
Jun 28: St Vitus Day (Serbia)
Jun 29: Autonomy Day (French Polynesia)
Jun 29: St Peter and St Paul (Peru)
Jun 29: Independence Day observed (DR Congo)
Jun 29: Martyrdom of Imam Sadeq (Iran)

An eight-day strike by workers at Codelco’s Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile will continue after unions rejected the latest offer from the state-controlled mining company for a new collective labour contract.
The new Codelco offer was tabled after clashes at which police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at striking workers trying to block access to the site.
Reuters reports the unions said the new offer did not significantly import employee retirement plans and did not meet their demand for better health-care.
Codelco warns the offer was the best it can put forward within the framework of collective bargaining.

Vanadium miner Bushveld Minerals has posted a maiden JORC-compliant inferred and indicated mineral resource of 66.8Mt @ 1.58% V2O5 in magnetite for 175,400t contained vanadium at its Brits project in South Africa’s North West Province.
Although the tonnage is low, CEO Fortune Mojapelo says the grade is among the highest in the world for V2O5 in magnetite. Indicated resources make up 67% of the total.
Mojapelo says Brits provides optionality for additional ore feed for Bushveld’s Vametcoplant and concentrate feed if required for its Vanchem plant.

ECR Minerals aims to pick up the pace of work towards a JORC compliant resource after internal modelling pointed to the potential for identifying a multi-million ounce deposit at its 100%-owned Creswick gold project at the historic mining centre of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia.
CEO Craig Brown says the UK-based miner is advancing its work program as aggressively as possible at Creswick.
Given the nuggety nature of mineralisation, it’s carrying out detailed testing of sample bags from recent RC drilling for gold content.
A specialist resource geologist will be appointed soon to assist project development and resource calculations.