Modern Mining July 2016

MINING News

Tiger Resources commissions Kipoi cobalt study The Kipoi project is located in the heart of the Katanga Copperbelt (photo: Tiger Resources).

from the Kipoi project and is currently undertaking debottlenecking works at the plant to increase production capacity to 32 500 tonnes per year. 

ASX-listed Tiger Resources has commis- sioned a study by independent consultant Mintrex Pty Ltd to investigate the eco- nomic viability of producing cobalt at its Kipoi project. Kipoi is located 75 km north- west of Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga Province, in the central part of the Katanga Copperbelt in the DRC. Tiger has a resource of 40 400 tonnes of measured and indicated and 5 600 tonnes of inferred cobalt across the Kipoi Central, Kipoi North, Kileba and Judeira deposits at its Kipoi project. There are additional cobalt resources at the nearby Sase Central deposit, where Tiger has defined 5 000 tonnes of indicated and 1 000 tonnes of inferred cobalt. The Mintrex study is expected to take three months to complete and will exam- ine Tiger’s potential processing pathways, with Mintrex to recommend options for future metallurgical testwork. Tiger Chief Executive Officer Michael Griffiths said the growing global demand for cobalt had encouraged the company to examine if it could economically convert its resources to a saleable product. “Cobalt is used in many industries, but its demand is increasing mostly due to its use in batteries and super alloys,” he said. “Tiger is in a position to capitalise on this

with our known resource at Kipoi and a strong operating and production record.” Tiger currently produces approximately 26 000 tonnes of copper cathode per year

Frontier files technical report on graphite project Canada’s Frontier Rare Earths has filed a Canadian National Instrument 43-101 compliant technical report on SEDAR incorporating a maiden mineral resource estimate for its 70 %-owned Lurio graphite project in Mozambique.

Nipacue sequence, the Nipacue Outer (NPO) layer, was evaluated by means of a reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling (DD) programme in order to provide data for the preparation of a mineral resource estimate. Three areas on the NPO layer were selected for drilling, known as Nipacue North, Nipacue Central and Nipacue South. The MSA Group was commissioned to prepare the estimates for Nipacue North, Nipacue Central and Nipacue South and an Independent Technical Report for the proj- ect based on total graphitic carbon (TGC) assays from the RC and DD drill holes, den- sity measurements from cores of the 22 DD drill holes, and data from mineralogical, metallurgical and other exploration work carried out on the project. The total indicated resource is estimated at 26,4 Mt at 7,34 % TGC for 1,94 Mt of con- tained graphite while the total inferred resource is 29,7 Mt at 6,76 %TGC for 2,01 Mt of contained graphite. 

The project is located approximately 80 km south-west of the port city of Pemba in Cabo Delgado Province and contains a number of known graphite sequences. As previously reported by Frontier, a series of phased, systematic exploration activities was conducted on the project up to the end of 2014, including geological mapping, rock-chip sampling, trenching, mineral- ogical analysis, ground geophysical surveys and metallurgical test work. Previous work on the project was predominantly focused on the Nipacue graphite sequence, which was considered to be the most promising of the sequences in the project area. In 2015 the most pro- spective of the graphite layers in the

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