Metallica Minerals Limited's 50% owned associate, Cape Alumina Pty Ltd, will commence a formal Scoping Study into a new bauxite development on Queensland's Cape York Peninsula following the announcement of its first JORC-compliant bauxite mineral resource statement.
Cape Alumina announced today that an assessment by Snowden Mining Industry Consultants Pty Ltd concluded that the portions of the company's Wenlock and Catfish Creek bauxite deposits drilled in September 2006 and located 60 kilometres north-east of Weipa, contain an Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 54 million tonnes of insitu bauxite. Cape Alumina Chief Executive Officer, Dr Paul Messenger, said the mineral resource, covering tenement EPM14547, s an excellent start for the Weipa bauxite project and in line with expectations?
Cape Alumina will now make preparations to drill extensions of the mineralisation into its adjoining tenement (EPMA15278 - 100% Cape Alumina) and complete a formal Scoping Study into establishing a bauxite mining and export operation? Dr Messenger said. Mr Andrew Gillies Managing Director of Metallica Minerals said that, with the completion of the Wenlock and Catfish Creek mineral resource estimate, one of China's largest independent alumina refinery companies, Chiping Xinfa Huayu Alumina Co Ltd, now has 30 days in which to exercise its option to acquire 10% of the shares in Cape Alumina from Metallica Minerals Limited for a total of A$4,625,000 (see ASX Release dated 24 August 2006). Mr Gillies said that EPM14547 covers part of the Catfish Creek deposit as well as approximately 15 square kilometres of the Wenlock deposit. Both bauxite deposits extend onto adjoining EPMA15278. The bauxite deposits are predominantly free-digging, gibbsite-rich pisolitic bauxite, averaging 2.4m thick at Wenlock, and lie less than 1 metre below the surface.
Snowden Mining Industry Consultants have provided their resource estimate for the Wenlock and Catfish Creek bauxite deposits on EPM14547 as 54 Mt insitu bauxite to yield 34 Mt of beneficiated bauxite on a dry basis with an average beneficiated grade of 52.9% Total Al 2 O 3 and 12.8% Total SiO 2 .
The resource statement is based on the 674 aircore drill holes completed by Cape Alumina in September 2006 (for further information see ASX release dated 1 November & 28 September 2006). Cape Alumina holds a further 16 Exploration Permit (Minerals) applications covering prospective bauxite areas over approximately 2,240km 2 in Cape York. A number of these applications are expected to be available for exploration drilling during the 2007 field season.
The arithmetic mean of a total of 1,076 samples analysed by ALS Chemex laboratory in Brisbane indicates that the above beneficiated mineral resource will have an average content of 41.8% Trihydrate Available Al 2 O 3 and 7.9% Reactive SiO 2 . The laboratory test conditions for Trihydrate Available Al 2 O 3 and Reactive SiO 2 were designed by consultant Tony Crisp on behalf of Cape Alumina to inhibit dissolution of boehmite and quartz.
CSIRO Minerals (a participant in the Parker CRC for Integrated Hydrometallurgy Solutions) has completed detailed ore characterisation studies on six drill samples collected from the Wenlock deposit. This work indicates the mineral composition of these samples is gibbsite (65.3-73.6%), boehmite (0.2-3.9%), kaolin (8.2-15.6%), quartz (3.2-6.8%), hematite (2.4- 5.9%), goethite (1.7-7.4%) and anatase/rutile (1.8-3.3%). CSIRO Minerals also postulated the presence of an amorphous silicate phase in the samples which does not dissolve under the test conditions and therefore Cape Alumina believes that it is unlikely to be deleterious under refinery conditions.
Due to their high gibbsite/boehmite ratio the Wenlock bauxite deposits appear to be suited to a low-temperature Bayer refinery process as currently used in some Chinese refineries.
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