ati forecasts 11% windimurra output increase

Mining Weekly

17/5/2011

Atlantic forecasts 11% Windimurra output increase

PERTH (miningweekly.com) − Vanadium developer Atlantic has forecasted an 11% output increase for its Windimurra project, in Western Australia, after boosting the project's ore reserve by 30%.

Vanadium output is now expected to increase to 6,300 t/y, up from the original forecast of 5,700 t/y, supported by a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-complaint reserve of 128-million tons.

MD Michael Minosora said that the ore reserve increase at Windimurra also extended the potential mine life to 28 years.

"The reserve increase also delivers the tangible potential for an increase in vanadium output from our nearly completed plant, which is an extremely exciting development for Windimurra."

He noted that the project's revised life-of-mine plan, shows we will process ore at a head grade of 0.51% vanadium oxide, an increase from the 0.47%, sustainable for a ten-year period following ramp-up, a circa 10% increase in head grade, Minosora said.

"We have now implemented our revised mine plan to deliver this higher quality feed into the processing plant. With the improvement in head grade and process optimisation, we also expect an improvement in operating costs. This will ultimately become evident as we ramp-up production," he added.

In addition, Minosora noted that Atlantic would continue to build on the exploration work over its southern tenement holdings, which confirmed the Windimurra vanadium bearing horizon extended south throughout an additional 21km strike length.

Meanwhile, Minosora also reported that with the increased output capacity, and the approaches for off-take agreements, Atlantic has now begun to bring the existing vanadium pentoxide circuit on line.

He said that the vanadium pentoxide market had strong demand and price fundamentals, adding that wide-ranging interest in Windimurra's ability to supply vanadium pentoxide in addition to ferrovanadium, warranted further cost benefit analysis of this additional circuit.

"Windimurra is uniquely placed to service this quality conscious market owing to the fact that Windimurra will be the only vanadium pentoxide production facility in the world to use a gas fuel source in the production process, allowing Windimurra to deliver a premium quality product."

Minosora added that the existing circuit could be brought on line for very low marginal capital expenditure, and these factors have prompted Atlantic's immediate expansion into the value-added vanadium market.

Windimurra was expected to produce its first product by the third quarter of this year.