Encouraging metallurgy results for vanadium pentoxide and high-purity alumina (HPA) concentrates – from mineralised seams not included in Critical Minerals’ current mineral resource estimate – will turbo-boost outcomes for the company’s upcoming scoping study into its flagship Lindfield project in north-west Queensland.
Management says its vanadium metallurgical results bode well for potential further improvement on optimisation of grade and recovery, with upper-seam material returning a beneficiated product of 1.5 percent vanadium pentoxide on the fourth test. It also achieved an 85 percent vanadium extraction on the first leach test.
Critical Minerals points out that the upper seam is not included in its current resource, offering a distinct upside with additional testwork and economic modelling. It also has the benefit of the seam being located within the fully oxidised zone, with less overburden to remove.
The company is also reporting a similarly positive outcome for two mineralised samples of HPA feedstock, using science-led processing company Lava Blue’s production method, with grades of 3N (99.9 per cent) and 4N (99.99) produced on the first attempt.
The project’s current resource, which has a world-class scale of 363 million tonnes grading 0.43 per cent vanadium pentoxide and 4.8 per cent aluminium oxide, is amenable to shallow open-pit mining techniques, with a higher-grade 138 million tonnes at 0.46 per cent vanadium pentoxide sitting in the surface-to-10m zone. A further 133 million tonnes lies in the next 10-to-20m section.
Critical says its Lindfield ore is both soft and at surface with a low strip ratio facilitating a potential mining operation that would require no drilling, blasting or milling. It says high-grade mineralisation starting from surface will only enhance its project economics for a development case.
The company recently added aluminium to its vanadium resource base and its impending scoping study will also look at the possibility of extracting a saleable HPA product. Management says the aluminium oxide content of the resource amounts to more than 17 million tonnes, which would add considerable value to its project.
The dual-commodity Lindfield project covers 295 square kilometres and sits about 30km from the town of Julia Creek. Other nearby vanadium holdings include its Whinmoor operation, while it has made applications for tenements for the Lindfield North and Lara Downs projects. It also has greenfield copper-gold prospective tenements near the rural Queensland town of Cloncurry.
Notwithstanding, Critical’s impressive new metallurgy results are likely to create some electricity for the green energy-hungry global market.
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