Page 16 - Sundance Resources 2014 Annual Report

14 SUNDANCE RESOURCES LIMITED ANNUAL REPORT 2014
PRELIMINARY SITEWORKS
The Mbalam-Nabeba Iron Ore Project remains the most advanced Mine
Development in the mineral province with an active year-round site workforce of
80-100 personnel on site, supporting ongoing Project studies, infrastructure site
preparation, community support programmes, government and investor visits,
training and development programmes along with the regular activities of trial mining
testwork and regional exploration.
Preliminary site works carried out over the last year have included
trial mining and bulk materials testing at the Nabeba mine
site, where several preliminary benches of iron ore have been
excavated. There has also been work done on the preparation
of access tracks and site clearance at mine site infrastructure
locations at both Mbarga and Nabeba, as well as at the rail loops
and at the Mineral Terminal Facility location at Lolabe.
This has allowed the Company’s geologists and engineers
to map and review the supergene mineralisation profile as
compared to the modelling data and interpretation from
resource definition drilling data. It also enables better bulk
sampling and test work of rock density and natural moisture
content, which all contributes to ensuring operations efficiencies
are in place once production commences.
SINTERING TESTWORK
The sinter evaluation delivered positive final results indicating the Mbalam-Nabeba
iron ore fines will produce a high quality sinter product.
To facilitate provision of finance for the Project, the Company
carried out its own sintering testwork program on a sample that
is typical of the first five years of planned production, from the
combined output of Mbalam and Nabeba.
The sinter program was designed to determine the effect on
sintering by adding increasing amounts of the Mbalam-Nabeba
ore to a typical sinter feed product. In order to benchmark
against a well-known iron ore product, the Mbalam-Nabeba ore
was substituted for a Pilbara Blend fines, which is considered the
desired Asian benchmark product in terms of pricing.
Results showed the Mbalam-Nabeba ore to have superior
chemistry to almost all of the peer products evaluated.
Only products considered peers to the Project’s fines were
tested to allow an accurate representation of the effects on
sinter performance by this product.
Based on the results, Sundance is confident that a product with
the chemical and physical attributes of the Mbalam-Nabeba
ore will have a marked improvement on sinter performance if it
replaces a typical sinter feed product.
This outcome supports works completed during the Project
DFS and provides strong ongoing support for the marketability
of the product as a premium iron ore fines. Customer samples
of the same composition as the sinter sample will also be made
available to allow interested parties to carry out their own testwork.