Date: Jun 13, 2018
Mustang Resources (ASX:MUS) has informed the market it has received strong results from preliminary ore sorting testwork conducted on drill core from its Caula Graphite-Vanadium project in Mozambique.
The testwork demonstrated that the Caula ore is highly amenable to sensor-based ore sorting, showing that an ore sample with no visible waste could be split into high-grade and low grade streams.
Both X-Ray Transmission and Conductivity-based (EM) sorting were evaluated through testing, with the EM sorting producing the best result for MUS. EM sensors assess the amount of electrically-conductive mineral (for MUS’s purposes, graphite) in each rock particle. The company also stated that vanadium values are closely associated with graphite and show a similar response to sorting.
Sorting ore saves a company costs by rejecting waste rock and low-grade ore ahead of expensive processing steps such as milling and froth flotation.
In many cases, sorting delivers additional environmental benefits to projects due to reduced tailings volumes, enhanced tailings storage stability and other factors. High capacity, sensor-based ore sorting is an emerging technology which can deliver enormous value, particularly when considered for a new mining project.
The preliminary ore sorting test work was conducted by specialists TOMRA, at its Test and Demonstration Centre at Castle Hill, NSW Australia.
In short, the tests found that in a full-scale mining operation, EM sorting would efficiently reject barren waste with minimal loss of graphite or vanadium values; successfully split a moderate-grade ore sample with no visible waste into high-grade and low-grade fractions; and, the potential to use ore sorting to upgrade graphite and vanadium grades.
