JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed nickel sulphide and tungsten exploration company Hazelwood Resources’ Big Hill prefeasibility study was progressing ahead of schedule, following a recent A$3-million raising, the company said on Wednesday.

The study on the deposit, located in Western Australia, was likely to be completed around September.

Hazelwood stated that the project could produce between 2% and 3% of the world’s primary mine tungsten.

The resource upgrade drilling was about 50% completed, and was expected to be concluded by mid-July. The objective of the programme was to increase the inventory of measured and indicated resources, thereby allowing a significant ore reserve to be estimated.

Hazelwood reported that the upgrade drilling programme continued to intersect coarse-grained scheelite at depth, with the mineralised sequence showing true widths of about 100 m.

Hazelwood has conducted a focused drilling and metallurgical testwork programme at the Big Hill deposit, but added that only a fraction of the extensive mineralised sequence at the deposit has been evaluated for resources.

The project concept was for a mining and processing operation, with a production capacity of about 220 000 t/y of tungsten concentrate. Preliminary pit optimisation indicated a life-of-mine strip ratio of less than 1:1.

The company added that recent successful x-ray sorting testwork has provided an opportunity to consider a bulk mining and processing operation that exploits the entire project and further reduced operating costs.

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