PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Tungsten explorer Hazelwood Resources has upped its resource estimate at the Big Hill deposit, in Western Australia, by 72%.

It has previously been estimated that the Big Hill deposit contained a tungsten mineral resource of 8,97-million tons at 0,17% tungsten oxide for about 1,6-million tons of contained tungsten.

The company said in a statement on Friday that further resource upgrades were expected as drilling continued.

Production at Big Hill is set to start in 2011 and would produce around 3% of the world’s supply of primary mined tungsten.

“The Big Hill deposit is mostly near the surface and needs almost no stripping to get the mine started. The metallurgy is proven through extensive test work and we are currently doing significant pilot scale testing. We can bulk mine and process at low cutoff grades and therefore mine more of the deposit,” said Hazelwood MD Terry Butler-Blaxell.

The prefeasibility study at Big Hill, which had been extended to examine downstream processing, is imminent, said Butler-Blaxell.

Major packages of work for a definitive feasibility study were currently being completed.

“We’re fully funded through to definitive feasibility study at Big Hill,” said Butler‐Blaxell.

Earlier this week, Hazelwood announced its acquisition of a majority interest in a downstream ferrotungsten project in Vietnam, which is due to be commissioned later this year. The new plant will have capacity to produce 25% of the world’s ferrotungsten and be the leading producer of the product outside China.

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