Ticks Another Box With WA Mining Lease Grant
Image Resources NL (ASX: IMA)has achieved a significant milestone in its plans to develop the h 100%-owned Atlas Mineral Sands Project, located 165km north of Perth in the North Perth Basin in Western Australia.
The company has been granted Mining Lease M70/1305by the WA Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS) on the heels of the execution and filing of a native title agreement over the proposed Atlas mining area, which was finalised in March 2021.
The Atlas project has current Ore Reserves of 9.5mt at 8.1% total heavy minerals (HM).
Managing Director, Patrick Mutz, said that as presented in the company’s 2017 Bankable Feasibility Study for the Boonanarring and Atlas Projects, the latter was always contemplated to be developed and operated in series, following the exhaustion of all available Ore Reserves at Boonanarring.
That is, mining and ore processing equipment and infrastructure would be relocated from Boonanarring to Atlas following final processing of all available ore at Boonanarring.
Development planning for relocating to Atlas is well underway and the grant of a Mining Lease is a critical part of the planning and implementation process. Based on current projections, the exhaustion of available Ore Reserves at Boonanarring and the relocation of mining and wet concentration processing plant (WCP)could occur as early as the December quarter 2022.
The Ore Reserves base at Atlas may be expandable, and the nearby 100%-owned projects of Helene and Hyperion are being evaluated to determine if any potential Ore Reserves from these projects could be economically transferred (pumped or trucked) to the WCP located at Atlas, to extend total mine-life in the Atlas area.
Image is Australian’s newest mineral sands mining company, operating open-cut mining and ore processing facilities at its 100%-owned, high-grade, zircon-rich Boonanarring Mineral Sands Project in the infrastructure-rich North Perth Basin. Boonanarring is arguably one of the highest grade, zircon-rich, mineral sands projects in Australia. The project was constructed and commissioned on-time and on-budget in 2018 and production of HMC ramped-up to exceed name-plate capacity in only the second month of operation (January 2019).
