Post in side from another board from an article about the vermiculite:
Larger Resources Seen When Uganda Vermiculite Mine Reopens
IBI Corp. (Toronto, ON) says the Namekara, Uganda, vermiculite mine it plans to reopen has much larger resources than previously reported. The mine operated up until the 1960s, when political turmoil shut it down. IBI's recent survey shows a 3.1 million tons indicated resource of vermiculite at the vermiculite. It excavated homogeneous coarse vermiculite (grade more than 50% vermiculite) in all pits to a depth of 10 m without drilling through the deposit, below an overburden of approximately 2.5 meters. Since IBI did not try to measure the extent of the field, the actual reserves could prove larger than its estimate of the resource.
The last survey of the area, which put recoverable vermiculite at 392,000 tons, came in 1956. The was based on 71 pits and only 10 drillholes to a depth of 15 m. IBI conducted additional detailed sampling in 15 pits and two trenches to a depth of 10 meters at intervals of 100-150 m over an area of 1000 m by 500 m. IBI also drilled deeper.
Hans Hansen, former co-owner and operations manager of Zimbabwe's 120-employee Shawa vermiculite mine, supervised the survey for IBI. He also graded the vermiculite and tested its exfoliation.
Hansen's initial field exfoliation tests (using a blow torch) show excellent exfoliation characteristics. IBI is now shipping a 1.1 ton bulk sample, and has sent 25 kg samples to Scamol (Denmark) and Geoscience Laboratories (Canada) for further analysis.
According to the March 1999 issue of Industrial Minerals, the price of South African vermiculite, bulk, fob Rotterdam, is $143-232/ton.
Formerly a minerals exploration company only, publicly-traded IBI purchased a 77% interest in Ghana's Kibi Goldfields mine two years ago. It now operates the mine. The company will earn a 70% interest in the Namekara mine by raising financing for development. On April 6, it completed a C$727,306 rights offering and plans to raise an addition C$900,000 through bonus warrants to fund the development. The East African Development Bank has promised to lend 1.8 times the amount of money IBI brings to the table to reopen the mine. |
