JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Cameroon-focused iron-ore exploration and development company Afferro Mining on Monday announced a maiden National Instrument (NI) 43-101-compliant mineral resource for its Ntem iron-ore project.
A total indicated mineral resource of 39.1-million tonnes at a grade of 34% iron and a total inferred mineral resource of 76.4-million tonnes at a grade of 34.2% iron was identified, while positive pilot-scale metallurgical testwork indicated a saleable and high-grade product.
The Ntem model was found to be open along strike with the potential to increase the mineral resource estimate by targeting material that fell below the optimised pit shell but remained potentially economic.
It was estimated that an additional 50-million tonnes to 150-million tonnes lay below the optimised pit shell used for constraining the inferred and indicated mineral resources.
"This resource, which has the potential to increase, is of an appropriate size to build a small-scale operation to 80 km from the deep water port under construction south of Kribi, where a shipping berth for a small operation should be available from mid-2014. It is also close to the Kribi gas-fired power station with a projected output of 216 MW,” CEO Luis da Silva said.
He added that an infrastructure scoping study for the project would be released in due course and should build on the idea of using road haulage to transport the magnetite concentrate to port, given the project’s proximity to the coast.