JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim- and FSE-listed Bluejay Mining is in for a busy second half of the year at its Pituffik titanium project, in Greenland. Licence applications are under way, drilling will start shortly and the company has now also appointed a consultant to firm up processing and development plans for the project.
SRK Exploration Services and SRK Consulting have started work on a mining and infrastructure study, which will define locations and conditions for mine construction at Pituffik. The work will primarily focus on the raised beach environment, where the current resource of 23.6-million tons at 8.8% ilmenite and an exploration target of between 6.3% and 8.4% ilmenite has been defined.
Bluejay says the infrastructure study will look at options for product storage and transfer options to ocean-going vessels by evaluating likely production rates and other similar infrastructure projects in the industry and in the country. This study will also include geotechnical and hydrological aspects for civil engineering required by the mining and processing flowsheet and facility layout.
The mining study will include a review of similarly high-latitude mining projects in order to understand what methods or infrastructure they have in place for winter operations and how these may be applied at Pituffik. SRK will highlight primary risks and opportunities in respect to different mining options based on the current understanding and regional scale water considerations. This will include considering the option to allow operations to continue year-round.
“It is accepted that mining will not be necessary during the winter due to the extremely high grade nature of the project and the lack of infrastructure required to move what will be a relatively small tonnage throughput to deliver our operational rates compared to a conventional mineral sand operation, but consideration should be given to what facilities would be required to allow mineral processing to continue throughout the winter periods once the project is ready for scaling,” Bluejay says.
These studies will be executed in parallel with the ongoing fieldwork programme during the next six months, which includes drilling to expand and upgrade the current resource, bulk sampling and the progression of the permitting process.
Pituffik, which Bluejay conditionally acquired in December 2015 and assumed 100% ownership of in March this year, has demonstrated the potential to be in the top percentile of projects worldwide in terms of heavy mineral grade.