JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed African Minerals on Thursday confirmed that it was in “advanced” discussions with London-listed Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), and several large industrial corporations in Asia, regarding its Tonkolili iron-ore asset, in Sierra Leone.

However, ENRC said in a statement that its focus was currently on a possible transaction with Central African Mining & Exploration Company.

African Minerals is looking to dispose of, or secure funding for the development of Tonkolili.

African Minerals executive chairperson Frank Timis said last month that it could advance the Tonkolili project into production over the next 12 months.

The project currently had a joint ore reserve committee compliant mineral resource of 5,1-billion tons. Of this, around 3,1-billion tons was in the indicated category with an average grade of 30,7% iron.

About 1,9-billion tons has been classified in the inferred category with an average grade of 28,9% iron.

Metallurgical test work indicated that Tonkolili iron-ore was upgradeable to a high quality concentrate,
grading in excess of 68% iron at a mass recovery of over 30%. Geophysics and reconnaissance drilling over a strike length of 20 km at Kasafoni indicated the potential to increase the iron-ore magnetite mineral resource to in the order of 10-billion tons.

Meanwhile, exploration has confirmed the potential for 800-million tons of hematite mineralisation.

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