PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior IronClad Mining was still hoping for a November start to its Wilcherry Hill iron-ore project, in South Australia, if offtake discussions with fellow-listed Arrium could be concluded and mining and transport contracts put in place.
IronClad launched offtake discussions with Arrium in August this year, to potentially sell the direct shipping ore (DSO) from the Wilcherry Hill joint venture (JV).
If an agreement was reached with Arrium, the JV would mine an initial trial pit at Wilcherry Hill, which would generate high-grade DSO for direct sale to Arrium Mining, and which would produce additional bulk samples for ongoing beneficiation testwork.
The mine-gate sale of the DSO product to Arrium was pursued after IronClad failed to raise the required A$23-million financing required to start operations at Wilcherry Hill, given the current market conditions.
The miner told shareholders that the potential mine-gate sale provided IronClad with a low capital start-up option for Wilcherry Hill.
IronClad in August amended the production plan at Wilcherry Hill, in response to the falling iron-ore prices. The miner said, at the time, that the Stage 1 pit would now only focus on high-grade DSO, with the starter pit expected to mine only 500 000 t over a six- to seven-month period.
This was compared with the original Stage 1 plan to mine up to one-million tonnes of DSO material.
The Stage 2 operations at Wilcherry Hill, which were targeted to produce high-grade concentrates, would also be brought forward.
The Stage 2 project had initially been expected to start by the third year of project operations, and was expected to produce some two-million tonnes of magnetite concentrate.