공시 • Mar 10
Ares Strategic Mining Inc. Completes Conceptual Mine Planning
Ares Strategic Mining Inc. announced the Company has completed its conceptual mine and operating plan, incorporating: mining and processing engineering, logistics, metallurgy, plant designs, site layouts, labor and contractor considerations, haulage, reclamation, CAPEX AND OPEX, permitting, mining techniques, drilling and geophysics, production expansion plans, financial projections, market analysis, mineralogy, land acquisitions, and production products. Project conceptual Capital and Operating cost analyses were generated based on economic and marketing parameters. The Project analysis results determined the project is financially attractive based on the project's CAPEX and OPEX, fluorspar pricing, operating parameters, market factors, and assumptions. The underground mine operating plan will employ sublevel longhole methods as the main mining method. Initial underground mining will be undertaken by a mining contractor, with the Company assuming to takeover mining work once the operation and processing is developed and optimized. Fluorspar material mined from the pipes will be transported from the mine site by conventional highway haulage trucks to the processing facility located at the city of Delta, where process water and other utilities are readily available. The process plant design capacity is 500 tpd. The process plant will produce two products: a medium-purity 90% grade fluorite (CaF2) met-spar product for pyro-metallurgical applications, and a high-purity 97% grade fluorite (CaF2) acid-spar product for acid process applications and the aluminum industry. Process plant fluorspar recovery is scheduled to be minimum of 80%. The process plant will consist of: A crushing circuit consists of jaw and cone crushing processes, following by a ball mill grinding circuit; Multi-stage high-intensity conditioning; and rougher and cleaner flotation circuits with a regrind circuit to increase Fluorspar recovery. The met-spar products will be dewatered and dried for packaging to meet consumers requirements. The final fluorspar products will be shipped to the consumers by either rail or truck from the Delta process plant. The tailings will be thickened, filtered, and dried for transportation back to the mine site to be
deposited in the mined-out fluorspar pipes to mitigate tailings surface storage. Metallurgical test work was undertaken to determine the optimum process plant flowsheet and to produce met-spar and acid-spar specific products. Concentrate multi element analysis determined the concentrate produced was very clean and free of deleterious contaminants. Ares' fluorspar operation is expected to directly employ 58 people, not including contractors. All projected costs incorporate labour and employee costs as determined by industry standards and averages. Ongoing exploration costs are estimated at USD 750K/yr to replace the mined Fluorspar. Over 100 targets have been identified at surface, with the Bell Hill Claims at the south of the Spor Mountain currently identified as the likely candidate for the Company's second mining operation site. Exploration on the Bell Hill claims is scheduled to begin in April 2021. The Company has already obtained exploration permits. If exploration drilling proves successful, it would be possible to expand the process plant capacity. A secondary production circuit, which would be a mirror image of the primary production circuit, can be installed, resulting in a 100% fluorspar production increase. Financial analysis indicates that if the expansion is scheduled in production year five, the resultant Project revenue is expected to increase from USD 40M/year to USD 80M/year from year five thereafter.