Name of the Project
Owendale scandium and cobalt project.
Location
Central New South Wales, Australia.
Client
Platina Resources.
Project Description
Owendale is one of the world’s highest-grade and largest-tonnage laterite-hosted scandium deposits.
A prefeasibility study (PFS) on the project has demonstrated positive economics based on only a portion of the mineral resources at the Owendale North deposit at Loomvale.
At a 300 parts per million (ppm) scandium cutoff, the project has total mineral resources of 27.9-million dry tonnes grading 385 ppm scandium, 0.33 g/t platinum, 0.12% nickel and 0.06% cobalt.
A relatively small amount of 50 000 dry tonnes of ore a year will be mined, with mineral resources sufficient for a project life of 21 years at a feed grade of 610 ppm scandium and a further 23 years of processing at 500 ppm scandium.
Mining activity is planned on a relatively small scale, based on the size of the overall operation.
The resource is surface-mineable, employing opencut mining techniques. All in-pit material has been identified as free dig material, and no drilling or blasting is planned or required.
Ore will be mined in advance and stockpiled for blending and transported by road to the process facility off-site.
Back haulage of the tailings by road will be deposited in in-pit cells developed in mined-out areas. When completed, tailings cells will be capped and pits backfilled to allow for continuous rehabilitation.
To create sufficient tailings cell areas and mining faces, temporary out-of-pit waste dumps will be developed next to the pits to allow for rehabilitation.
Mineralised waste will be used for capping to allow for future reclamation.
Medium-grade material will be stored in long-term stockpiles until eventually processed and rehabilitated as tailings in the final pit voids. Sufficient waste in long-term stockpiles is retained to undertake the final rehabilitation and land forming.
Ore will be recovered from mined stockpiles using a front-end loader
The mill facility will size, heat and feed the ore into a continuous high-pressure acid leaching autoclave into which sulphuric acid will be injected to promote leaching. Downstream process circuits will recover scandium from the autoclave leachate using solvent extraction, scandium purification and calcination to generate a finished scandium oxide product, grading 99.9% scandium oxide.
Nickel and cobalt will also be recovered as mixed sulphide precipitate.
Potential Job Creation
Mining personnel will be employed on a continuous basis for the mining earthworks and will be responsible for the provision of excavation, including grade management, pit and ramp formation, as well as haul road and dump management.
Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has a pretax net present value, at a 10% discount rate, of $180-million and an internal rate of return of 27%, with a payback period of three to four years.
Value
The capital cost of the project is estimated at $94-million.
Duration
The development and commissioning schedule includes a two-year construction period. For the purposes of the PFS, it was assumed that the project would start in late 2018, with initial commissioning expected in late 2020. This two-year ramp-up period has been adopted to achieve nameplate capacity of 50 000 dry tonnes of ore throughput a year and an estimated 42 t/y of scandium oxide.
Latest Developments
The long mine life and additional mineral resources not included in the PFS offer a long-term mining proposition and scope to expand yearly production as the global scandium market develops.
Platina will now consider what improvements and flexibility might be secured in respect of capital and operating expenditure, and in timing for optimal development.
The company also plans to investigate ways of scaling down the amount of scandium oxide production to smaller amounts in the earlier years of mining and increasing its production as the market develops.
Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.
On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.
Contact Details for Project Information
Platina Resources, tel +61 7 5580 9094, fax +61 8 9380 6761 or email admin@platinaresources.com.au.