London- and Frankfurt-listed Bluejay Mining has delayed the release of a prefeasibility study (PFS) for the significant Dundas ilmenite project, in Greenland, to the first quarter of next year, but chairperson Mike Hutchinson believes it will be worth the wait.

The final Dundas PFS will be released only after engineering optimisations identified in the process design and capital requirements for the development have been incorporated. These optimisations will expand “what is already an economic development into a significantly more robust long-term operation”, Hutchinson said in the company’s interim results announcement on Thursday.

“A preliminary economic assessment of the raised beaches at Moriusaq indicate a robust project can be realised and, with recent optimisations now being built into the Dundas project, I am confident that during the first quarter of 2019 we will deliver an attractive development proposal in the PFS,” he stated.

Individual models of the PFS will be released as and when they are completed, starting in November.

Besides the Moriusaq raised beaches, the Iterlak resource is also a significant resource, the inclusion of which Bluejay believes will demonstrate that a multi-decade operation is achievable.

The Dundas project currently has a Joint Ore Reserve Committee-compliant resource of 96-million tonnes at 6.9% ilmenite, but Bluejay is planning to refine the resource model and add work conducted during the 2018 field season.

During the 2018 work programme, the company has focused on further proving up the resource potential around the Interlak Delta, which had a resource target of between 20-million tonnes and 60-million tonnes at 6% to 10% ilmenite.

While exploration advances at Dundas, Bluejay continued to focus on bringing the project to production.

Hutchinson reported that a number of key geotechnical and surveying requirements, including hydrogeology installations around the licence area, establishment of a year-round weather monitoring station, and geotechnical assessments for infrastructure locations, had been completed. Infrastructure at the site had also been greatly enhanced.

Further, third and final year environmental baseline studies had been completed, which would facilitate the completion of the social and environmental impact assessment (SEIA) to then feed into final licensing applications that were at an advanced stage. The ESIA is set for completion in the fourth quarter.