INTERNATIONAL MINING PROJECT NEWS issue 126 is another very important and comprehensive issue, out today, and with in excess of 50 pages of project updates. It has new information on 39 gold projects, 22 copper projects, 11 in iron ore, 12 in base metals and seven in coal, but also reflects the ongoing interest in developing other high value niche commodity projects such as rare earths, lithium, uranium and vanadium amongst others.

In projects at the pre-feasibility stage, there is both major and junior activity. Xstrata Copper’s Executive Committee has approved the start of a prefeasibility study to evaluate the development of the copper sulphide deposit located below the current pit of the Lomas Bayas operation in northern Chile’s Antofagasta Region.  The new study will assess a possible investment of $1.6 billion to expand annual production to 140,000 t of copper in the form of concentrates and cathodes and to extend

Aureus Mining has appointed DRA Mineral Projects of South Africa to undertake the metallurgical test work and process design studies as part of the New Liberty gold project DFS in Liberia. DRA will undertake detailed metallurgical test work to definitive feasibility level and then complete all design work and cost estimation studies for the operation of the process plant.

From African gold to African marine phosphate – Minemakers, Union Resources and Tungeni Investment, as the shareholders of the Joint Venture company Namibian Marine Phosphate (NMP) have provided an update on progress of the DFS for the Sandpiper phosphate project in Namibia. Appointed DFS lead consultants, Bateman Advanced Technologies Limited, co-ordinated a DFS planning and progress meeting with key sub consultants, in Johannesburg, South Africa in May. Bateman is co-ordinating the overall DFS study and managing the component aspects of specialist work to be undertaken by the various sub consultants. The marine dredging study is being carried out by Jan de Nul (JDN) of Belgium. The engineering works include the detailed engineering, scale model as well as a deepwater dredging feasibility study to access seabed sediments to a depth of 275 m. The study will be completed in late 2011 upon which the construction works will be commissioned.

In further advanced and expanding projects, Ausenco has been awarded a Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) contract for the Constancia copper project in Peru owned by HudBay Minerals. The Constancia copper project incorporates the development of an open cut mine and construction of a 25 Mt/y copper and molybdenum concentrator with associated infrastructure. HudBay recently announced a $116 million pre-construction program for the project. This involves early equipment procurement for long lead items, a resource model update, metallurgy review and pit optimisation study, geotechnical and condemnation drilling and a $9 million exploration program.

Constancia is located approximately 100 km south of Cusco, Peru, in a highly prospective region near several development projects and operating mines. It is situated on the eastern side of the Andahuaylas-Yauri copper belt, some 3 km from the Katanga mine, a copper-gold mine that operated from the early 1900s up until the 1990s.

In Asia, Indophil Resources is pressing ahead with Tampakan.  Over the past two years, significant progress has been made on the Tampakan copper-gold project including submission of the Mine Project Feasibility Study to the Philippine Government in April 2010. Since then, the project partners have identified areas to strengthen project parameters and enhance the project’s value. The project now has a defined timeline to development with a final investment decision scheduled for 2012. Construction is expected to commence in 2012 with first production expected in 2016.

In the diamond industry, Gahcho Kué, vying to be Canada’s newest diamond mine, has received the green light from its owners, diamond Giant De Beers and TSX-listed Mountain Province Diamonds, for development.

Canada Lithium has announced the results of an updated Feasibility Study for the development of a mine and lithium carbonate processing facility at its Québec Lithium Project near Val d’Or, Québec.  The Updated Feasibility Study contemplates an open-pit mine and processing plant that will have an initial mine operating life of nearly 15 years. The planned annual output for the project remains at approximately 20,000 t per year of battery-grade lithium carbonate. Initial site construction is planned to commence in Q3, 2011, with process plant commissioning currently scheduled to be underway by the end of 2012 and full production expected by the end of 2013, subject to financing and final permitting.

Also in the lithium market but this time with a brine source, Lithium One has commenced a pumping test program at the Sal de Vida Lithium-Potash brine project in Argentina. Pumping tests provide critical information on the behaviour of the aquifer and brines during the extraction process.  Multi-stage pumping tests, data processing, and groundwater modelling will continue over the next several months to project the flow rates for future production wells and the ultimate well field design for extraction of the Sal de Vida brines.

In the huge and well developed Indonesian coal mining market, there are also new players. Kangaroo Resources is aiming to join the ranks of the leading coal producers after having received final shareholder approval to complete its previously announced $277 million acquisition of the Pakar Coal Project from the leading Indonesian coal conglomerate PT Bayan Resources Tbk. Pakar, which is located in Kalimantan, is one of Indonesia’s largest thermal coal projects, with an estimated JORC Code total coal resource of 3,019 Mt of thermal coal.

One of the world’s other leading export coal mines, Drummond in Colombia, which is owned and operated by US-based Drummond Co, now has a Japanese partner. ITOCHU Corp has reached an agreement with Drummond Company and Drummond affiliated companies to enter into a partnership where ITOCHU will own 20% and Drummond will own 80% of the Colombian mining operations and related infrastructure that are currently owned 100% by Drummond.

All this and much, much more in the June 17 issue of International Mining Project News….

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