Weatherly International has announced that its Tsumeb tailings project in Namibia has higher grades than many of the world’s existing copper mines. It revealed the maiden JORC resource for Tsumeb. The tailings project is now estimated to host a 12 million tonne resource, grading 0.48% copper, 0.77% lead, 0.63% zinc and 12.74 grams per tonne silver.
Mr Rod Webster CEO of Weatherly International said that "I am very happy with the results, particularly the metal grades, which at today's prices represent a copper equivalent of over 1%. This is higher than many of the world's existing copper mines, even when you take lower recoveries into account. This gives us great confidence that a viable process route will be established and that the project will proceed to full development."
Weatherly hired specialist South African contractor Dump and Dune to carry out a 109 hole drill program in May. The subsequent data was incorporated into the resource estimate which was compiled by Coffey Mining. Samples have now been sent for initial metallurgical testing which is being supervised by Sedgman Engineering.
Sedgman is adopting a 'base case' processing route using a simple regrind and refloat of the minerals to produce concentrates suitable for smelting but will also investigate a number of leaching alternatives that may be applicable.
Sedgman has also been mandated to complete a feasibility study for the project which will be based on 2 million tonnes a year operation. It has also carried out a preliminary site investigation and it suggests that the optimal approach will be to build a new plant on the existing Weatherly site. This approach is expected to take full advantage of the existing infrastructure power and water supplies.
Considerable historical data exists, in particular the work carried out by Goldfields in the 1990's which concluded that the existing plant could be modified to recover 40% of the copper, 45% of the lead and 65% of the silver to separate copper and copper and lead concentrates.
(Sourced from www.proactiveinvestors.com.au)
