Australian iron ore company BC Iron Limited announced that the Phase I of trial mining at the Company's Nullagine Iron Ore Project in Western Australia supports the key technical assumptions of the Project, as outlined in the Nullagine Project Feasibility Study.
Since the commencement of trial mining on September 16th 2009, approximately 65,000 tonnes of ore has been mined and hauled from the east end of the Outcamp Deposit and approximately 43,000 tonnes of ore has been crushed.
Surface miner operations have now concluded, however crushing and screening activities will continue for the rest of October while analysis of ore samples and metallurgical test work will be ongoing together with geological mapping and geotechnical work in the pit.
Trial mining was a key recommendation of the Nullagine Project Feasibility Study and is a major milestone as BC Iron prepares for commercial iron or production at Nullagine in 2010 under the Company's JV with Fortescue Metals Group Limited.
To date, assays received from the first of three pits have exceeded Robe River ore specifications in terms of grade and contaminant levels, which is one of the key requirements for the Nullagine JV. These results are consistent with the pre-mining grade estimate and clearly underpin confidence in the Feasibility Study
One of the most important aspects of the test pit was to determine the viability of surface miners for exploiting the deposit. The results from this work to date are consistent with expectations from the Feasibility Study.
The surface mining technique has also aided in the crushing and screening process, with the benefits of feeding surface run of mine material to the crushers highlighted during the trial. The equipment employed to conduct the trial mining is of the same nature and scale as the equipment which would be required to commence the first year of operations at the Nullagine Project. This provides additional confidence in the robustness of the Project.
Mr Mike Young MD of BC Iron said that he was very pleased with the results coming from the trial mining operation which to date have demonstrated the technical viability of the proposed mining method and the overall robustness of the Project.
He said that "We are very pleased with the preliminary results we have seen to date across all aspects of the trial mining operation. In particular, it is pleasing to note the performance of the surface miners, which have proved to be very effective for the type of deposit that we'll be mining."
He added that it is expected that the full test pit results will be released to the market in the coming months. These results will be used to reassess the final commercial elements of the Feasibility Study ahead of planned construction early 2010.
