MQR has been suspended till Monday/Tuesday next week, but there deal was leaked through their Canadian JV partner on the TSX.
Near term primary cobalt asset, with PFS completed on it. With a tone of exploration and met work done on the project from 1920 on wards. Heaps of info online about the project for some weekend reading, DYOR and get a jump on everyone else. Looks like an absaloute beauty! History
The Werner Lake Cobalt Mine produced cobalt ore in the 1930s and 1940s from the “Old Mine Site” deposit area and with the discovery of the main ore area at the West Cobalt Deposit, was taken to production decision in the late 1990s when prices were below today’s LME spot price of USD $24 per pound. At the time, infrastructure was put in place, including four season road, mill buildings, and tailings settling area. Decline ramp, drifts and raises of over 258 metres were driven into the heart of the deposit.
The most significant work was undertaken by Canmine Resource Corporation (“Canmine”) between 1995 and 2002. During this time Canmine carried out extensive drilling and exploration work leading to the discovery of additional mineralized lenses beneath the old workings, now referred to as the Minesite Deposit (or “Old Mine Site”). The West Cobalt Deposit is located about 500 metres west of the Minesite Deposit and was also discovered during their exploration and development program. In addition to drilling, Canmine carried out diamond drilling, extensive metallurgical testing, underground rehabilitation and development work. A 25 tonne bulk sample was excavated from the Minesite area and submitted to Lakefield Research for analysis and hydrometallurgical testwork. Canmine reported “With a high-temperature pressure leach, Lakefield Research Limited extracted greater than 99% of the cobalt into a liquor, which was treated to precipitate cobalt carbonate assaying 35% cobalt with little (0.03%) arsenic and nonhazardous process solid residues ” ( Canmine Annual Information Form, August 12, 2002 ). From this same 2002 Annual Information Form, Canmine released the following Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserve Estimate for the Mine Site and West Cobalt areas:**
Undiluted Proven Reserves of 140,031 tonnes of 0.47% cobalt, 0.26% copper and 0.008 ounces per tonne gold; and
Probable Reserves of 40,829 tonnes of 0.25% cobalt, 0.20% copper and 0.003 ounces per tonne gold.
In 2009-2010, GEMC’s predecessor company drilled 7,565 metres of drilling in 31 holes that was used to further investigate the property and the openness of the deposit to depth and to the east. In addition to the findings from the 2009-2010 program, significant resource data is available, including analytical results, business plans, engineering studies and metallurgical reports from previous operators.
Drill results from that recent drilling included a 12.30 metre intercept averaging 1.21% cobalt including a very high‐grade interval grading 12.48% cobalt over 0.90 metres. These high‐grade intercepts are associated with anomalous copper, nickel and gold values ( Puget Ventures release April 19, 2010 ).
Engineering
Detailed engineering studies were undertaken by SNC-Lavelin (“SNC”) to prepare a development plan and determine the most cost effective mining techniques to be employed at Werner Lake. Due to the variability of the mineralised zones, SNC recommended shrinkage mining at the West Cobalt Zone and Lens 1 and 2 at the Old Mine Site, opting for long-hole open-stope mining being employed at Lens 3. Details including fleet requirements, ventilation, ground support, a development plan and other mining details were laid out in a 2002 report authored by SNC. Detailed cost estimations included: shrinkage costs of $12.32 per tonne, long-hole costs of $9.47 per tonne, ramp development costs of $1,121.72 per metre, raise development costs of $945.07 per metre and haul drift, draw point and other access costs of $1,067.31 per metre. A 300 tonne production rate per day over a 5-day week was assumed. From 1997 to 1998 extensive exploration was undertaken through the decline and also through a sub-drift that was driven 107 metres within the ore zone to obtain a 4,094 tonne bulk sample. Metallurgical studies have shown that excellent cobalt recoveries can be yielded from a standard flotation mill process followed by a low-pressure oxidative hydrometallurgical leach (net recovery 88%), to produce a cobalt carbonate end product. At the time of this work Canmine received written offers or indicative term sheets from companies around the world for the purchase of the cobalt carbonate product, which reportedly averaged 27% cobalt and 6% copper content.
