Surefire Resources says it has identified a significant opportunity to produce high-grade iron and titanium concentrates from its Unaly Hill magnetite deposit that sits in Western Australia’s Mid West region.
The company is also engaging with potential stakeholders interested in fast-tracking the development of its flagship Victory Bore project abutting its Unaly Hill ground, about 450km north-east of Perth.
A new metallurgical testwork program at Surefire’s 100 per cent-owned Unaly Hill magnetite deposit has been dealt out to long-established West Perth firm METS Engineering Group. Management’s decision to conduct updated testing comes after an in-house review on previous testwork from 2018 that showed the significant potential to produce high-grade concentrates of the two important metals.
The 2018 program resulted in 63 per cent iron and 10.9 per cent titanium oxide concentrates being produced.
METS will conduct the process to develop the concentrates by separating out the titanium from the iron magnetite and then attempting to recover and produce a high-grade titanium product. The process is well-understood and involves crushing and grinding, in addition to gravity and magnetic beneficiation.
The company notes that significant advancements in magnetic separation using rare earths magnets will assist with upgrading the two concentrates.
Titanium is often used in metal alloys alongside iron, aluminium, vanadium and molybdenum. The resultant alloys are strong, lightweight and versatile and used in industrial applications such as aerospace products, sporting goods, consumer electronics, surgical instruments and jewellery.
Its two most useful properties are its corrosion resistance and its strength-to-density ratio.
Surefire Resources chief executive officer Jan de Jager said: “This internal study has revealed the potential for the company to bring forward an early production operation from Unaly Hill. This will allow the company to deliver significant value in producing an Iron Magnetite concentrate that will be able to attract a pricing premium if delivered to the Green Steel market.”
De Jager said that continued discussions with key stakeholders were positive and also essential to enable the critical work needed to progress the Victory Bore project towards completing a definitive feasibility study (DFS) and then a final investment decision (FID).
The company says several stakeholders are displaying interest in various business areas including mining contract services, haulage from mine to the Geraldton port, shipping services from the port to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and co-development of the planned vanadium plant to be operational in the KSA.
It also has interest from potential product offtakers and funding partners.
Surefire is also looking at a planned dual-listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to attract a range of German and European investors and has appointed AXINO Capital for an initial 12-month term to assist with the process.
The company recently signed several memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Saudi-based companies to collaborate on completing binding agreements for a joint venture (JV) structure.
The aim of the JV is to establish a framework for investment by a Saudi entity into Surefire’s flagship Victory Bore vanadium-iron project, with the dual-purpose of also developing a mineral processing facility in the Middle Eastern nation to process magnetite concentrate from its WA operation.
Surefire is free to deal with its preferred KSA company as the MOUs are not exclusive. Its objective is to mine the ore from Victory Bore and beneficiate it to produce magnetite iron concentrate, then ship to the KSA to benefit from lower operational and capital costs.
Victory Bore has a mineral resource of 464 million tonnes at 0.3 per cent vanadium oxide, 5.12 per cent titanium oxide and magnetite iron going 17.7 per cent. It boasts a reserve of 93 million tonnes at marginally higher grades.
Management plans to produce 1.25 million tonnes of a vanadium-titanium magnetite concentrate from the project annually and then use a downstream process to convert the upgraded ore into a myriad of in-demand products.
The beneficiation process is expected to upgrade the material from its in-ground value to about 1.4 per cent vanadium and a higher-grade magnetite concentrate to improve both its attraction to interested parties and the potential for a range of iron-vanadium-derived products. The company will be able to produce a ferro-vanadium product, titanium slag, pig iron, high-grade iron ore and a high-purity iron oxide pigment grading 99.9 per cent, in addition to vanadium electrolyte.
What is often overlooked is that the vanadium grade after the concentration process is the most important aspect, not the in-ground grade. The company’s ore responds well to the beneficiation process, with the grade increasing more than three-fold.
An added bonus is the fact that its vanadium is contained within the magnetite ore and not found in ilmenite, like it is in the material from many of its competitors.
So, it seems the potential of Unaly Hill to produce a valuable concentrate to supplement the huge Victory Bore resource may well provide a win-win for Surefire and its Saudi suitors.
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By Craig Nolan
