Iron-ore hopeful Kogi Iron Limited (an Australia-based firm) has completed the conceptual mine design for Stage 1 and 2 of its proposed Agbaja project, and has identified a potential location for the processing plant.
Kogi, which is conducting a scoping study for the project, said that two mining areas had been identified, pits had been designed and that the material movement schedule had been completed for the Nigeria-based project.
The Stage 1 area was estimated to contain about 158-million tonnes of inferred resource, while the Stage 2 area was estimated to contain some 63-million tonnes of the total 488-million tonnes of inferred resource.
The Stage 1 area could provide processing feed for an initial 14 years, while the Stage 2 mining area could provide processing plant feed for an additional six years.
“The two mining areas have an overall strip ratio estimated at 0.72:1, which is an excellent result. Such a low forecast strip ratio will minimise costs for the first 20 years of operations and is proving to be a distinct advantage of this project,” said Kogi MD Iggy Tan.
Meanwhile, a proposed site location for the plant had also been identified in the north-east of the resource area. The site was selected based on its central location between the two identified mining areas, and was within a portion of the resource area that had been found to be weakly mineralised.
Tan noted that the next phase of the work on the scoping study would be an estimation of mining costs.
“Overall, the scoping study is progressing well and is being completed at a high level of detail. The study is still on track to be completed by the end of the first quarter 2014.”
