JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-, JSE- and Aim-listed Ferrum Crescent on Friday said it planned to progress with a bankable feasibility study at its Moonlight iron-ore project, in Limpopo, with a view to starting construction on site by 2015 and concluding its development by early 2018.

This followed positive results from initial scoping financial models and an updated revised Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource of 307.8-million tons at 26.9% iron, capable of sustaining operations in excess of 20 years.

The company said it would develop Moonlight as a contract, openpit mine with on-site concentrate production.

“The beginning of 2013 sees us able to focus on final discussions regarding the development of an openpit mine at Moonlight and a logistics pipeline to a pellet plant able to produce a sought-after high-grade iron-ore product for our customers,” executive chairperson Ed Nealon said in a presentation.

A slurry concentrate pipeline would be built to transport concentrate to a six-million-ton-a-year pelletising plant near the existing railhead, which would also provide return water to Moonlight.

The pelletising plant would produce iron-ore pellets for international and domestic markets, with production of both direct-reduction iron and blast-furnace grade pellets planned.

Ferrum Crescent had, in 2011, entered into an offtake agreement for the final direct reduction or blast furnace pellet product with steel processor Duferco, which would give the latter the right to exclusively receive the first 4.5-million tons of anticipated pellet production.

In addition, Duferco would have first right of refusal to an additional 1.5-million tons a year of pellets not sold domestically.

Meanwhile, the company said it had secured a new-order mining right covering the farms Moonlight, Julietta and Gouda Fontein, while a full environmental-impact assessment, submitted in July 2011, had been approved by the Department of Mineral Resources.

“The work the team has carried out on infrastructure negotiations over the last six months since receiving our final mining licences has moved Ferrum forward significantly towards our production aim," said Nealon.

Transport arrangements with South Africa’s State-owned rail company Transnet were being negotiated.