Tertiary studies make the grade
TERTIARY Minerals has said that it continues to make progress on its two fluorspar projects at Storuman in Sweden and Lassedalen in Norway.
The company, which recently raised £10m to exploit its fluorspar assets, said that studies at Fluorspar on the make-up of materials likely to be extracted were on track.
The firm is planning to mix high-grade fluorspar at upper levels of the open mine with lower-grade material at lower levels, blending them to produce an acid-grade fluorspar that can be extracted at a rate of 100,000 tonnes a year.
It said feasibility studies are aimed at seeing whether materials can be ground together at a courser size, which should mean that it saves cost in processing materials that could then be used by a wider group of buyers.
However, more test work needs to be done on the lower zone to see whether materials from the separate areas can be blended or need to be processed seperately.
Meanwhile, an earlier-stage study at the Lassedalen project by Wardell Armstrong has indicated a “positive” set of results for the production of the higher-value acid grades of fluorspar. The Macclesfield-based company said the study, which is the first economic and technical evaluation of the prospect, will be completed next month.
Operations director Richard Clemmey said: “This will form the basis for a decision on more advanced feasibility studies and drilling.”
The company also said that prices for fluorspar were remaining stable at $500-550 despite the turmoil on international markets.
It said Chinese authorities were maintaining their tight grip on supplies generated in the company meaning that Western consumers of fluorspar – a meterial used in air conditioning systems, among other things – now face structural supply shortages.
Executive chairman Patrick Cheetham said: “The world has been in financial crisis one way or another since we took up our first fluorspar project in 2008 and although fluorspar prices have see-sawed in this period, they have followed a longer-term rising-trend.”
