PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior Bryah Resources has reported a 31.3-million-tonne nickel/copper/cobalt mineral resource estimate for the Australian Vanadium deposit, at its Gabanintha project in Western Australia.

Fellow-listed Australian Vanadium, which holds the mineral rights to the vanadium, titanium, iron and cobalt at the deposit, is currently undertaking a bankable feasibility study for a vanadium operation.

A prefeasibility study has previously estimated that the project could produce some 900 000 t/y of vanadium pentoxide magnetite concentrate, producing 22.5-million pounds of vanadium pentoxide a year, over an initial 17-year mine life.

Bryah noted on Tuesday that metallurgical testwork undertaken as part of the feasibility study had shown that the nickel, copper, cobalt and gold present in the non-magnetic tail after separation of the vanadium/titanium/magnetite concentrate, could be processed to produce a base metal concentrate.

Australian Vanadium has welcomed the initiative by Bryah to progress studies to extract value from the non-magnetic waste stream at the Australian Vanadium deposit and has said that it would assist Bryah with samples from its non-magnetic tailings and samples of its drill core from its southern pit areas for further feasibility studies into the flotation of the sulphides.

Bryah will now undertake a number of work streams over the coming months to better understand the base metal opportunities at the Australian Vanadium deposit, including analysing additional drilling samples, undertaking flotation testwork to establish the likely sulphide concentrate yields and grades of nickel, copper and cobalt, as well as gold and platinum group elements, and undertaking a prefeasibility study into the capital and operational costs of adding a sulphide flotation circuit to the Australian Vanadium project processing plant.