Name: Nolans mine.
Location: Nolans Bore is located in Australia’s Northern Territory, about 135 km north-north-west of Alice Springs and 10 km west of the Stuart Highway near Aileron Roadhouse.
Controlling Company: Arafura Resources.
Brief History: The title over the Nolans Bore deposit is secured under exploration licence (EL) 28473, which was granted under the Mineral Titles Act to Arafura Resources by the Northern Territory government’s Department of Mines and Energy in October 2011 for an initial period of four years.
Arafura Rare Earths, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arafura Resources, lodged an application for a mineral lease (ML) as ML 26659, referred to as the Nolans mine site, with the Department of Mines and Energy over the Nolans Bore deposit and surrounding areas in February 2008. Granting of this application awaits the finalisation of an indigenous land-use agreement with the native title custodians and their Central Land Council representatives. Arafura is preparing additional ML applications on EL 28473, EL 28498 and EL 29509 to accommodate the expanded footprint of the Nolans site to include the Nolans mine site and the Nolans processing site.
Quarrying of carbonate material on EL 28473 for use at the Nolans processing site requires Arafura to obtain an extractive mineral lease. The process to secure a valid title over the carbonate material is well under way.
Brief Description: Nolans is one of the most advanced rare-earth (RE) development projects globally. The Nolans Bore resource is rich in neodymium and praseodymium – the key REs used in high-strength permanent magnets. This resource composition positions Nolans as a potential world-leading feedstock provider into the rapidly expanding RE magnet market. The main applications for RE magnets are in the automotive, consumer electronics and energy sectors.
Geology/Mineralisation: The Nolans Bore deposit is a three-dimensional, hydrothermal stockwork vein-style deposit, with steeply dipping veins up to tens of metres in thickness and hundreds of metres in length, extending below 250 m drilled depth across large parts of the deposit. Two broad styles of rare-earth element- (REE-) bearing mineralisation have been outlined at Nolans Bore. ‘Apatite style’ mineralisation ranges from discrete narrow and fine-grained veins to wide intervals of massive coarse-grained breccias. These apatite-rich rocks comprise up to about 95% apatite and typically contain abundant mineral inclusions of REE-bearing minerals, such as monazite group minerals, allanite, thorite and numerous other REE phosphates, silicates and carbonates. The geologically and mineralogically complex ‘calcsilicate style’ is best expressed and most prominent in the Central zone of the deposit, but is also found in the North zone. Calcsilicate mineralisation tends to be of a lower grade than the apatite style and is typically dominated by apatite, allanite, epidote, amphibole and pyroxene.
Reserves: Total minerals reserves as at December 2012 were 47-million tonnes, with a grade of 2.6% RE oxides.
Resources: Total mineral resources as at June 2012 were 24-million tonnes, with a grade of 2.8% of RE oxides.
Products: Rare earths.
Mining Method: The proposed mining operation will use conventional openpit truck and excavator mining methods, supplemented by drilling and blasting for ore and waste.
Major Infrastructure and Equipment: Beneficiation at the Nolans mine site will comprise crushing, grinding, magnetic separation and flotation to produce a blended concentrate.
Concentrate will be pumped through a slurry pipeline to an RE extraction plant at the Nolans processing site. REs will be extracted from the concentrate by chemical processing to produce a high-quality RE intermediate product.
Rare earths will be separated into the final RE oxide products at the offshore RE separation plant using solvent extraction, followed by precipitation and calcination.
Prospects: Arafura released a development report on the Nolans mine project in September outlining the company’s development plans. The report emphasised the company’s target to start production from the Nolans site in 2019 and reinforced the robust economics of the project despite currently subdued RE prices.
Contact Person: MD Gavin Lockyer.
Contact Details:
Arafura Resources,
tel +61 8 8947 5588,
fax +61 8 8947 5599, and
email media@arafuraresources.com.au.