JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed exploration company Sable Mining Africa has been granted a mining licence for the Nimba iron-ore project in south-west Guinea – one of the largest undeveloped direct shipping ore (DSO) projects to be held outside the major mining companies active in West Africa.

The licence, which was issued to the company's 80%-owned subsidiary West African Exploration and signed by Guinean President Alpha Conde, covers a 23 km2 area covering portions of the total 123.5 km2 Nimba project, which boasts a current Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (Jorc-) compliant resource of 135.5-million tonnes.

A recent drilling programme over the mining licence area that focused on a 200 m by 3.9 km extension area highlighted significant high-grade DSO mineralisation, including an intersection measuring 36 m at 62% iron.

In addition to high-grade DSO tonnages close to surface, metallurgical results have indicated that production could benefit from a simple crushing and screening process. 

The company was confident that the high-lump fraction should enable production to start with a dry plant, with no beneficiation required, which would considerably reduce upfront capital expenditure requirements.

CEO Andrew Groves said that, with the inclusion of the results from the recent drilling programme, the Jorc-compliant resource would likely be increased towards the fourth-quarter exploration target of 200-million tonnes.

He added that the granting of the licence was a landmark achievement for Sable that would pave the way for the miner to start the development of the low-capital iron-ore asset. 

“We will continue to work closely with the relevant authorities to ensure the timely issuance of our export decree, while remaining focused on the resource upgrade, rail allocation and prefeasibility study publication, which are all expected by the end of the year,” he commented.