Arafura bullish about progress at its Nolans rare earths Project
The Australian company Arafura Resources Ltd (ASX: ARU) which has what is regarded as one of the world's largest undeveloped rare earths projects today took a positive stance on its Nolans project in Australia's Northern Territory.
Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Monday , 24 Aug 2009
QUEENSTOWN, NEW ZEALAND -
mineweb.com
A progressing bankable feasibility study on the Nolans project has seen Arafura claim that, based on earlier assessments, it will have improved performances including rare earths recovery in the chemical process, greater phosphoric acid recovery, a decreased use of reagents, and improved product quality for fertiliser-grade phosphoric acid it would produce.
Arafura's managing director, Alistair Stephens, said rare earths recovery in the chemical process has now been defined at 86% (previously it was 80%) and phosphoric acid recovery would be 85% for a technical grade product (previously 80%).
He said rare earths recovery would reduce concentrate feed for an output of 20,000 tonnes per annum and this would result in lower operating costs.
Stephens said phosphoric acid from Nolans would be a high quality, low impurity, technical grade product that sells at a substantial premium to fertiliser grade phosphoric acid
At completion of the pilot plant, optimised recoveries for rare earths and phosphoric acid from the bankable feasibility show recoveries would remain unchanged for the mine-site heavy media concentration stage.
These improved recoveries result in an average recovery from mine resources to saleable product of:
· Rare earth carbonate 77.5%;
· Phosphoric acid - technical grade 76.5%;
· Uranium (U3O8) 72%
Stephens said improved rare earths recovery and phosphoric acid recovery would result in increased volumes of high-quality product that would sell for more than $US1,000 per tonne compared to fertilizer-grade phosphoric acid at $US400/t.
Arafura has been operating in the Northern Territory for the past 20 years and listed on the ASX in 2003, with Nolans as its prime project.
The deposit has a current resource of 30.3 million tonnes, containing 848,000t of rare earth oxides, 3.9 million tonnes of phosphate, and 13.3 M lb of uranium - considered enough for a 30-year mine life.
Arafura developed a processing flow sheet, and has demonstrated the recovery of rare earths, phosphoric acid and uranium at a pre-production scale pilot plant located at ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) in Sydney. |
