PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Privately-held Stella Vista has acquired an 85% interest in the Kalia iron-ore project in Guinea.
Kalia is touted as one of the largest undeveloped iron-ore projects globally, with over $350-million having been invested in the project since 2007, including progressing the project through two bankable feasibility studies (BFSs).
The first BFS completed in 2012 considered a 46-million-tonne-a-year direct shipping ore (DSO) and magnetite operation, which was expected to have a net present value (NPV) after tax of $7-billion and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 53.1%.
A 2013 BFS on an accelerated 10-million-tonne-a-year DSO-only operation estimated an initial ten-year mine life with an NPV after tax of $1.39-billion and an IRR of 37.5%.
A prefeasibility study on the in-situ nickel deposit has also been completed, with Stella Vista saying that the company will be investigating the potential of a laterite nickel deposit, which overlays the iron-ore deposit.
Stella Vista forms part of the Millennium Panorama Group, which is led by former Fortescue Metals deputy CEO and founding director Russell Scrimshaw, as well as former mining executives from Bowen Coking Coal, Coal of Africa and Sirius Minerals.
“I am fortunate to have first-hand experience in identifying iron-ore projects globally which fill the criteria of future operational mines,” Scrimshaw said this week.
“Kalia is such a deposit and we are delighted to have acquired it. The most important development has been the start of construction of the Trans-Guinean Railway and Port infrastructure, which will bring a new economic dawn to Guinea.”
The project is located 350 km from the Guinea coast and within 10 km of the Trans-Guinean Railway, which is currently under construction at a cost of $15-billion.