Name and Location
Panda Hill niobium project, Tanzania.

Client
Cradle Resources.

Tremont Investments has increased its shareholding in the Panda Hill niobium project, in Tanzania, to 37.5%, Cradle has indicated.

Tremont has invested $5-million to acquire a further 12.5% stake in the project, bringing its investment to $10-million.

Cradle says the investment has been made to derisk the project through an infill and extensional drilling programme, extensive metallurgical work and a prefeasibility study (PFS).

Tremont is expected to complete a feasibility study by the fourth quarter of this year, after which a decision to mine will be made.

It has the right to contribute a further $5-million investment to the project to take its ultimate stake in the Panda Hill project to 50%.

Project Description
The prefeasibility study (PFS) completed on the Panda Hill project has confirmed a world-class niobium resource with excellent metallurgical recoveries.

The base case for the PFS is premised on an openpit mining operation, providing two-million tonnes a year of mill feed over a 30-year life-of-mine.

This is the same scale of operation that was considered in the scoping study and approximates to 8% to 10% of world production.

For this reason, and to simplify financing arrangements, the definitive feasibility study (DFS) will be scoped to achieve a more modest entry into the market, starting with a throughput of one-million tonnes a year.

The DFS will allow for production expansion as demand grows.

In the early years of production, the successive pit cutbacks will target the high-grade Angel zone, with further expansion targeting the medium-grade, but high-recovery, fresh sovite mineralisation to the north.

As the Panda Hill mineralisation is a relatively clean material with low levels of impurities, particularly uranium, tantalum and titanium, and a well-liberated mineralisation at coarse grind, a single-stage flotation method can be used to process the niobium ore.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has a post-tax net present value, at a 10% discount rate, of $470-million and an internal rate of return of 56%, with a payback of 1.5 years.

Value
The capital required for a two-million-tonne-a-year plant is estimated at $158-million, excluding preproduction and working capital costs.

This includes a 13% overall contingency.

Duration
Not stated.

Latest Developments
The DFS on Panda Hill is ongoing, with the integrated pilot plant work having being completed during the quarter ended September 30, 2015. The results confirmed the overall process for the plant, but also highlighted the importance of managing the water balance to control water quality within the niobium flotation circuit and the impact of crushing/milling on fines generation and the subsequent niobium losses through desliming. Piloting will continue in November and December 2015 once the bulk sample has arrived from Tanzania.

Geotechnical drilling and trenching for the plant and tailings storage facility have been completed, along with the water bore drilling for the environmental monitoring boreholes. Further boreholes have also been drilled to identify the opportunity for water abstraction.

Meanwhile, the testwork at the Johannesburg laboratories on the geotechnical samples collected is nearing completion and all interim results have been provided for the geotechnical and tailings consultants for use in the foundation designs.

The process design work is progressing with the work on the front-end (crushing and milling) and the smelter nearing completion. The results from the integrated pilot plant and the batch leach testwork are being used to develop the design of the flotation and leaching circuits.

Pit optimisations and strategic scheduling for the mine design have been completed. The schedule of rates from the mining contractors for the first round of the selection process has been completed and the technical package for the second round is being developed. The final pit design and interim pushback designs are progressing in conjunction with production scheduling.

The tailings storage facility design work is well-advanced, with the layouts and sizing completed. Wall and foundation design, as well as stability analysis, is ongoing, with bills of quantities also being developed.

Ongoing additional studies and activities include:
• run-of-mine pad and haul road designs,

• flotation plant and leaching plant sizing and layouts,

• mechanical equipment costing and material take-off for bulk quantities,

• a tailings dam phasing approach,

• surface water studies to finalise the site water management requirements and strategies,

• product offtake agreements, and 

• project financing.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
SGS Canada (piloting of the milling and flotation circuit).

On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
Cradle Resources, tel +61 8 9389 2000, fax +61 8 9389 2099 or email admin@cradleresources.com.au.