Australia’s Black Rock Mining says it now expects to develop a low cost long life US$57 million graphite mine within the next 12 to 24 months in the rich Tanzanian region aimed at key high demand and emergent high technology centres in Europe. This follows the release today at the inaugural Paydirt 2016 Australian Graphite Conference in Perth of a highly positive scoping study into Black Rock’s Mahenge project in Tanzania.

At 131Mt@ 7.9% TGC with high grade portions of 37.6Mt @10.2% or 16.7Mt@ 11.1%, Mahenge is the fourth largest flake graphite JORC resource in the world and the highest grade graphite project in Tanzania. Addressing Conference delegates, Black Rock Managing Director, Mr Steven Tambanis, said the scoping study had delivered robust results including a straight forward mining and processing operation delivering 52,000 tpa graphite concentrate from a 500,000 tpa throughput, and a two year payback. The study identified scope for a 25 year mine life, an NPV of >US$285 million, and an internal rate of return of 62%.

Cash costs for Mahenge were set at US$458/t, with an expected sale price of around US$1,230 per tonne. The independent scoping study was undertaken by consultancy, BatteryLimits. “Mahenge offers the flexibility to initially develop a smaller mine then scale-up as demand increases, ensuring lower capital and lower risk,” Mr Tambanis said.

“The project exhibits a high proportion of coarse and jumbo flake and has excellent purity levels in the 96-98% range for coarse flake. This is a premium graphite product and buoyed by today’s scoping study outcomes, we have already commenced the pre-feasibility study. “Mahenge’s metallurgical results to date exceed expectations and significant improvements are expected as our test program continues to optimise the process route.” Perth-based Black Rock will undertake a final 30 drill hole program at Mahenge next month to increase the deposit’s proportion of Indicated resource and to define more high-grade tonnes.

”The large flake size and high purity of Mahenge graphite tested to date suggests that Mahenge graphite can be applied to the premium battery market as well as traditional applications,” Mr Tambanis said. ”As well as the PFS, Black Rock has also commenced our graphite marketing initiatives to parallel our objective of financing, constructing and commissioning this new Tanzanian mine within two years.

“We will ensure however, that we fully understand just what product Mahenge can consistently produce over the long mine life so that we can match its graphite attributes specifically to customer requirements. “This will ensure offtake is linked to planned production levels, as we envisage selling a range of graphite products into different applications.”