Black Canyon (ASX:BCA) has confirmed the potential for an early-stage direct shipping ore (DSO) development at the Wandanya manganese project in Western Australia’s far north.
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The Western Australian company has this week received positive results from crush, sizing and assay metallurgical testwork, which has demonstrated the potential to produce a low-cost DSO product for both the high-grade manganese oxide and iron products at the Wandanya discovery.
The tests also confirmed very low concentrations of deleterious elements associated with the DSO products, with the material’s high manganese content in the coarser size fractions positively impacting the application of density-based techniques to upgrade lower and medium grade manganese.
The metallurgical testwork follows up on initial heavy liquid separation testing, which achieved a high-quality manganese concentrate of over 44%.
Black Canyon MD Brendan Cummins said the crush and sizing testwork results have provided further confidence for the project.
“The lower and medium grade manganese composite samples also delivered positive trends with high manganese grades reporting to the coarser fractions, which bodes well for the Stage 2 HLS beneficiation testwork,” he explained.
“Similarly, the quality of the iron products is demonstrated with early indications from both the medium and high-grade composites that a high portion of the crushed sample is reporting to a lump-sized range with low deleterious elements such as aluminium, silica and phosphorous.
“The key to a successful mine development, and in particular bulk commodities, is simplicity. The Wandanya discovery has continued to demonstrate from its inception a simple geological model showing widespread, continuous and shallow mineralisation which will lend itself to low strip and low-cost mining.”
Mr Cummins said results to date suggest the Wandanya process flowsheet will comprise a simple crush/screen for the DSO manganese and iron products with lower and mid-grade manganese mineralisation requiring a beneficiation technique that has a positive impact on the project operating costs.
“We look forward to the completion of the metallurgical testwork program and the commencement of the field season with a combination of infill and expansion drilling planned over the next three to six months,” he said today.
A second stage of the metallurgical testwork has commenced using heavy liquid separation (HLS) techniques on the lower and medium grade manganese samples, which will be followed up with larger scale dense media separation (DMS). This will provide important beneficiation characteristic information for the lower and medium grade manganese mineralisation discovered at Wandanya using a technique that is routinely used at the Woodie Woodie site on similar feed grades.
A reverse circulation rig is being mobilised for a 15,000m program scheduled for early April. The rig will be drilling extensions to the north and east of the current three km area already delineated, and infill drilling.
BCA is steady at 29.5cps today. Mkt cap $47.54M.
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