Norway firm delays Philippine mine plan
business.inquirer.net
Norway-based Intex Resources said it had deferred the completion of a definitive feasibility study for its nickel mining project in Mindoro Island, south of Manila, including a $2.9-billion plant, from early next year to the fourth quarter of 2009, citing as reason the global financial crisis.
“The new schedule is a board decision that will optimize the process and cost efficiency of the [feasibility study], in reference to the current global financial situation,” Intex president and chief executive Erlend Grimstad said in statement.
Grimstad said that despite the global economic crisis, Intex “remains well funded to take the Mindoro nickel project through a full study. The company has a strong cash position and no interest-bearing debt.”
“Once the results of the ongoing metallurgical pilot plant testing are available, detailed engineering and the design of the process plant will commence,” he said.
Intex plans to invest $2.9 billion in a high-pressure acid leach facility at the Mindoro mine site. The plant is projected to produce 80,000 metric tons of nickel and 3,700 metric tons of cobalt annually.
Grimstad said the new schedule should “allow lower [feasibility study] capital costs to be estimated, as it will better capture the general price deflation of capital items currently ongoing in the industry.”
“It will also enable a larger mineral reserve to be included in the [study’s] parameters, as results from ongoing drilling at Buraboy [area] can be included in the mining model,” he said.
The old schedule was to complete the study early next year, which would allow sourcing of funding by mid-2009 and start of construction by early 2010.
Grimstad said funding could come from banks or from a possible partner.
The project—involving a substantial nickel laterite deposit that the company says may be one of the biggest in the world—covers 9,720 hectares straddling the border of the provinces of Oriental Mindoro and Occidental Mindoro.
Most of the drilling work and evaluation were done initially in Kisluyan and Buraboy areas |
