PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior Renascor Resources on Tuesday said that the availability of financing would ultimately determine the size of its Siviour graphite project, in South Australia.
Renascor is currently considering a staged development of the Siviour project, with Stage 1 of the operation producing 22 800 t/y of graphite concentrate at a capital cost of $29-million. In Stage 2, Renascor’s yearly production would increase to 156 000 t for an investment of $91-million.
“Graphite projects are historically very difficult to finance; it is an industrial mineral, offtake is difficult and its very hard to finance these kinds of projects,” Renascor MD David Christensen said at this year’s Battery Minerals conference.
He noted that while most small scale projects were still faced with a fixed infrastructure cost, which could impact operating costs, the Siviour project was located in an area of established infrastructure.
“We believe we can start on a small scale and still have a very competitive operating cost of $600/t. Or alternatively we can go large and push operating cost to among the lowest in the world.”
Renascor is in the midst of completing a definitive feasibility study for the Siviour project, which is due for completion in the second quarter of this year, and was working with its debt advisers on funding options, which Christensen said would instruct the company on the most likely avenue of development.
Pending financing, construction of the Siviour project could start as early as the fourth quarter of this year, with first production likely to follow by 2020.