JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Buoyed by positive results from a scoping study and strong fundamentals for zinc, developer Metalicity will start a prefeasibility study (PFS) for the Admiral Bay project, in Western Australia, and has initiated a process to find a joint venture partner to accelerate the development.
The scoping study, which SRK Consulting completed, confirms that the Admiral Bay project could support a “long-life and low-cost zinc/lead/zilver operation of world-class scale”.
“The strategic nature of Admiral Bay needs to be understood in the context of the long-term fundamentals for zinc lead markets. The recent and imminent closures of world-class, large-scale zinc mines are expected to create a significant supply shortage on the global zinc market.
“There are very few large, long-life and potentially low-cost zinc projects located in stable, first-world mining jurisdictions that can be brought into production to address this supply shortage,” said Metalicity MD Matt Gauci.
The initial focus of the PFS will be the refinement of the preferred PFS pathway, including more detailed evaluation of specific development options and mining techniques.
Metalicity bought the Admiral Bay project from the liquidators of Kagara in September 2015. Kagara has previously completed a PFS on the basis of a ten-year mine life at an ore throughput of 2.5-million tonnes a year, from a 2.1 km strike length of the deposit.
Metalicity announced a new resource estimate for the Admiral Bay deposit earlier this month, with the inferred resource estimate now totalling 170-million tonnes at 4.1% zinc, 2.7% lead and 25 g/t of gold.