PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Iron-ore hopeful Flinders Mine has increased the resource at its flagship Pilbara iron-ore project, after nearly doubling the resource at the Blackjack deposit.
Based on a recent drilling campaign at Blackjack, the deposit was now estimated to host some 86.2-million tonnes of resource, grading 56.8% iron. This was a 93% increase over the previously estimated resource.
Flinders told shareholders that the majority of the mineral resource was classified as indicated, with some 84.2-million tonnes listed in this category. Some 19.5-million tonnes of the resource was classified as bedded iron deposits (BID), a further 64.6-million as detrital iron deposits, and 2.1-million tonnes as channel iron deposits.
Drilling was now planned to test further high-grade mineralisation adjoining the Blackjack resource and other BID targets within the Pilbara project.
An independent investigation into the project had revealed that capital expenditure of A$726-million would be required to support a 25-million-tonne-a-year operation at the Pilbara project.