London-listed Bushveld Minerals Limited (LON:BMN) has announced a change of strategy for development of its Mokopane tin project in Limpopo Province, South Africa, along with positive results from pilot-scale metallurgical test work at the site.
Bushveld released a scoping study for the project in September 2014, but has altered its strategy to focus on smaller-scale, near surface high-grade tin targets. This will reduce the initial capex requirement and the time required to bring the mine to production.
Bulk metallurgical testwork on a 500 kg ore sample from the Groenfontein deposit was intended to assess tin recovery on a plant-scale, gain insight into potential concentrate grades, and to optimise the plant flow-sheet design in line with a smaller scale mine operation. The testwork has indicated that overall Sn recoveries through a proposed processing plant will be in excess of 70% for a final concentrate grade of 59% Sn. The optimised plant design envisages a 164,160 tpa operation producing up to 400 tpa of tin-in-concentrate. The company is now undertaking final costing to determine capital and operating expenditure requirements for the entirety of the Mokopane project to be included in an updated financial model.
Fortune Mojapelo, CEO of Bushveld Minerals Limited, said: “The encouraging metallurgical results achieved support our view that high-grade cassiterite concentrates can be produced from the Groenfontein Deposit with relatively good recoveries. We look forward to finalising infrastructure and mine cost estimates while continuing to focus attention on accelerating smaller-scale mine development and commissioning.“
