Name and Location
Ironveld pig iron project, Limpopo, South Africa.

Client
Ironveld.

Project Description
The project is located in the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex, comprising a group of seven adjacent farms, with the rights covering 165 km². Combined in situ inferred mineral resources are estimated at 32.9-million tonnes. The plan is to build a pilot smelter as a precursor to a far larger pig iron plant, which will be fed with magnetite from the Ironveld project.

The pilot plant will require 12 MW of capacity. Power for the pilot plant is available immediately from an electrical substation 12 km away, into which 20 MW of power is delivered, but is not used.

The full-scale plant will require the construction of four 75 MW direct-current smelters. The 300 MW for the full-scale plant will be provided by Eskom from late 2018.

The 12 MW pilot plant, which will initially produce pig iron, will eventually produce ferrovanadium. The plant will have produced about 46 000 t of pig iron by mid-2015, and associated vanadium by-products.

Ironveld expects to mine 2.4-million tonnes a year of magnetite as feedstock for its eventual one-million-tonne-a-year plant, which will also produce vanadium and titanium by-products.

Value
The initial investment is estimated at $60-million, with the eventual larger plant requiring capital expenditure of $938-million.

Duration
Not stated.

Latest Developments
None stated.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
MSA Group (exploration), Setpoint Laboratories (assying) and Mintek (metallurgical testwork).

On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
Ironveld, tel +44 203 397 2071 or email contact@ironveld.com.
MSA Group, tel +27 11 880 4209, fax +27 11 880 2184 or email info@msagroupservices.com
Setpoint Laboratories, tel +27 11 923-7100 or fax +27 11 923-7029.
Mintek, tel +27 11 709 4111 or fax +27 11 793 2413.