Resource Report: Juniors Rethink Resource Exploitation
Monday, November 27, 2006
By Doug Hadfield
Rocmec Resources (TSX: V.RMI, BullBoards), in cooperation with Canada Economic Development and Natural Resources Canada, has developed a form of thermal rock fragmentation for use in mining narrow vein, high-grade precious metal deposits.
The problem with narrow-vein mining is one of efficiency. Miners want to recover valuable minerals and prefer to leave waste rock in-situ. When the mineralization narrows to less than a few meters, excavation machines can no longer be used within the space. To excavate a narrow vein into a wider one to fit in an excavating machine produces waste and dilutes the ore.
Rocmec's approach to thermal fragmentation consists of enlarging the original 15cm drill hole and extracting its contents. A strong burner, powered by diesel fuel and air is lowered to the bottom of the hole and lighted, creating in-hole temperatures up to 1800°C. This creates thermal stresses that crack and fragment the rock. The broken material produced during this process ranges in size from fine-grained to 4 cm. The remaining mineralized ore is typically sucked from the hole by a device similar to an industrial vacuum.
By using thermal fragmentation, Rocmec can extract bulk samples from very specific locations. First, diamond drill holes are used to delineate multiple vein areas, followed by thermal fragmentation bulk sampling. Since thermal fragmentation mining requires minimal space, there is less waste rock and dilution than with conventional mining. Thermal fragmentation also requires substantially less field preparation work and is cheaper to operate.
Last week, Rocmec announced it would begin processing approximately 40,000 tonnes from its bulk-sampling program presently underway at its Rocmec1 gold property in the Abitibi region of Quebec. At the same time, high-grade ore extracted using thermal fragmentation will be stockpiled or sent to a refiner. The contract with Richmont will enable Rocmec to generate revenue on a regular basis, the press release states.
Recent grade results from Rocmec's 8000' surface drilling program currently underway at Rocmec1, included assays of 12.1 g/t over 4.2 metres including 51.8 g/t over 0.82 metres.
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Got this from Stockhouse, it sounds interesting. If this new process works it would seem that Rocmec would get the keys to the kingdom.
Would appreciate any comments. |
