13th May 2014 13:14
LONDON (Alliance News) - African Minerals Ltd Tuesday said its direct shipping ore (DSO) resource at the Tonkolili mine in Sierra Leon has been updated, with increases in the total amount of ore but declines in the average iron grading.
The iron ore miner in Sierra Leone said its JORC compliant DSO mineral resource estimate for the site increased 12% to 142.1 million tonnes from 126.5 tonnes, but its average grading fell to 57.0% iron from 58.1% iron at December 2010.
The company said that 94% of the total mineral resource estimate is now classified in the Measured and Indicated categories which represents the delineation of an additional 59.5 million tonnes of DSO and should considerably extend the life of its DSO operations.
It said the estimate reflects that 43.9 million tonnes of DSO material has been mined since the start of production from the site at the end of March and also includes the results of 34,000 metres of supplementary drilling at its Simbili, Numbara, Marampon, and Kasafoni project areas
African Minerals said that, with near term expansion of the site's production capacity to 25 million tonnes per year and with saprolite processing currently expected to start in 2016, its DSO operations are now expected to run through until 2020.
The company added that an updated saprolite resource, which should include better metallurgical parameters, is expected to be available by the end of the second quarter.
Saprolite is a chemically unweathered rock which is formed in humid, tropical or subtropical climates. African Minerals is currently assessing the metallurgical properties of the saprolite component of its Mineral Resource.
African Minerals shares were up 1.0% to 124.25 pence Tuesday.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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