Name: Maracás Menchen mine.

Location: The Maracás Menchen mine is located in the eastern state of Bahia, in Brazil. 

Controlling Company: Largo Resources.

Brief Description: The Maracás Menchen mine comprises 18 concessions, including 16 exploration permits and two mining licences, totalling 17 691 ha. The openpit mine boasts one of the highest-grade vanadium resources in the world and is one of the lowest-cost producers of the material in the vanadium market.

Brief History: Construction at the mine started in June 2012 and initial production of vanadium flake started in August 2014. The company started production of high purity vanadium flake and high purity vanadium powder in 2017.

Over the past 30 years, the Maracás Menchen mine has undergone several additional phases of exploration and economic evaluation, including geophysical surveys; prospecting; trenching; diamond drilling programmes; geological, petrographic, metallurgical and mining studies; resource estimates and economic analyses. These studies have advanced the project to its present status of an operating mine.

Products: Vanadium.

Geology/Mineralisation: Vanadium at the Maracás Menchen mine, contained within a massive titaniferous magnetite, possesses very low levels of contaminants, like silica. The entire strike length of the mine property is rich in vanadium, hosting many deposits of vanadium-rich titaniferous magnetite mineralisation, particularly at the Campbell pit and other smaller deposits such as Gulcari B, Nova Amparo and São Jose. These unique features make extracting and processing the vanadium into its final saleable product much easier and significantly lowers the operating costs of production.
 

Reserves: Total proven and probable in pit reserves as at May 2, 2017, were estimated at 19.01-million tonnes with a 1.15% vanadium pentoxide head grade.

Resources: Total measured and indicated resources as at May 2, 2017, were estimated at 19.78-million tonnes with a 1.2% vanadium pentoxide head grade. Inferred resources were estimated at 1.65-million tonnes with a 1.2% vanadium pentoxide head grade.

Mining Method: The Maracás Menchen mine is an openpit operation using a contract mining fleet of hydraulic excavators, front-end loaders and 36 t haul trucks.

Major Infrastructure and Equipment: The current process flowsheet comprises three stages of crushing, one stage of grinding, two stages of magnetic separation, magnetic concentrate roasting, vanadium leaching, ammonium metavanadate (AMV) precipitation, AMV filtration, AMV calcining, and fusing to vanadium pentoxide flake as final product.

Prospects: Largo Resources announced plans in April 2018 to expand production capacity at the mine by 25%, with construction beginning in June 2018. The enhanced production rate is expected to result in an additional 200 t/m of vanadium pentoxide being produced totaling 1 000 t/m from June 2019.
 

Contact Details:
Largo Resources
Tel +1 416 861 9797 
Fax +1 416 861 9747
Email ir@largoresources.com