PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Metallica Minerals on Monday announced that focus at its Urquhart bauxite project, in Queensland, would shift to explore the viability of mining a potential industrial sand product.
Metallica told shareholders that it was recommending that the joint venture (JV) with private Chinese firm Ozore should delay the completion of a planned prefeasibility study (PFS) into a bauxite operation at Urquhart until the potential industrial sand opportunity has been investigated further, and the JV better understood regarding whether the sand mining opportunity was viable.
The PFS was scheduled for completion at the end of March this year.
Subject to Ozore agreeing to these recommendations, the next stage of investigating the industrial sand opportunity would be to undertake an exploration programme to determine the possible volume and quality of the sand resource at the tenement.
This work would likely require dry season drilling, which would not take place before the third quarter of this year.
In the meantime, Metallica said that it would progress other aspects of the bauxite project, and would endeavour to minimise project and company overhead costs.