By FRANK ASAELI
MARENGO Mining Ltd has began definitive feasibility study (DFS) activities at its Yandera project during the quarter ending December last year, with site visits by the miner’s newly appointed operations manager Grant Calderwood and representatives from DFS engineers.
Marengo recently awarded a contract to complete a DFS on the Yandera project to an alliance of leading Australian-based resource engineering and construction company GRD Minproc Ltd and URS Australia Pty Ltd, the Australian arm of international engineering and environmental group, URS Corp.
This and subsequent visits would give a good appreciation of the project location, terrain, environmental and cultural interfaces involved.
In addition, a mineral processing and infrastructure options workshop was held to examine and refine options as highlighted in the previously completed conceptual mining study.
The components included in this review were road access to the main site, plant locations, ore transport, concentrate transport, port locations, tailings disposal, environmental management and community affairs management.
A number of options had been identified for costing, on a comparative basis (phase 1), to determine the best options to form the completed DFS (phase 2).
Also during the quarter, negotiations were conducted for the majority of other subsidiary studies, with these being awarded were mining studies to Golder Associates (Perth), tailings management to Klohn Crippen Berger (Brisbane) and environmental management to Coffey Natural Systems (Brisbane).
It was anticipated that a number of short, technically specialised studies were likely to be performed by other organisations during the course of the DFS, which was scheduled for completion by middle of next year.
The DFS was well on course with phase 1 completion due at the end of the March quarter.
The study management motivation was for diligent technical and commercial performance to confidently assess the project’s feasibility, thus enabling the Yandera project to become a significant supplier to the world’s copper-molybdenum markets.
Meanwhile, the company had maintained a strong cash position with cash reserves of A$16.556 million (K44 million) at the end of the December quarter.