:: BacTech Talking to Partners for Cobalt Tailings Project

Canadian junior BacTech Mining, which hopes to use its bioleaching technology to neutralise the arsenic content and recover cobalt, silver and nickel from as much as 18-million tons of tailings left behind in Cobalt, Ontario, is now in advanced talks with potential partners for the project, CEO Ross Orr reports. The firm, which plans to build an initial 200 000-t/y tailings demonstration plant next year, is essentially looking for a 'big brother' with full pockets and operational experience that would, ideally, come in with a 50% interest in the project, he said in an interview. BacTech's tank bioleaching process was developed in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, and has since been used successfully to extract gold from difficult ores in commercial plants in Australia and China.

However, Orr has now set his sights on Cobalt, a historic Ontario mining camp where high-grade silver was first discovered in 1903, and which produced more than 330-million ounces of silver over the following 20 years, from about 100 mines. Of course, that many mines means a great deal of tailings deposits dotted across the area - Orr says current estimates put the total at around 18-million tons. The high grades meant that Cobalt miners did not bother with difficult-to-recover silver, while the cobalt in the ore - which at the time was viewed as virtually worthless - was disposed of with the silver tailings.

Fast forward to 2009 and, with both metals trading at very healthy levels, the Cobalt tailings would be in high demand, were it not for the not-so-insignificant issue of arsenic contained in the rock. By now, the arsenic displaced by mining in the early 1900s has become a significant health issue in the area, to the extent that people are advised against swimming in or eating fish caught in certain lakes. Fortunately, neutralising, or stabilising arsenic is something that BacTech's Bacox technology does particularly well. To prove the process, and start generating cash flow at the same time, the company plans to build an initial 200 000-t/y tailings plant.

Applications for government grants have produced encouraging responses, and Orr hopes he could secure as much as C$16-million of a total C$25-million project cost from public sources. The balance will be put up by BacTech and its future partner.

Preparations for the project are already well under way - water studies began earlier this year and consultants have been hired to complete environmental and closure plans.

Testing has also been carried out on sample tailings from Gold Bullion Development's Castle mine, which will feed the demonstration plant during its initial phase. “It's very lucrative... there's a lot of metal in there and cobalt prices are rising nicely," Orr said. If all goes to plan, detailed engineering work on the plant should be under way in the fourth quarter of this year, to allow for construction to begin in August 2010. The first tailings from Castle would then be processed early in 2011, Orr said.

The plant would run for between six and eight months, before a decision would be made on expanding to the planned one-million tons a year, which should produce about 70 000 t of concentrate.

The expansion to 1-million tons should be relatively straightforward, given the modular nature of the technology, and the fact that the demonstration plant will serve the dual purpose of proving the technology and producing revenue means that the expansion should be easily financed with debt.

Source:
www.miningweekly.com

[Top|Back]