Aus Tin Mining (ASX:ANW) CEO Peter Williams talks about the successful results from Taronga Tin Project in New South Wales and the importance of ore sorting.
Rachael Jones: Hello, I'm Rachael Jones for the Finance News Network. Joining me for an update from Aus Tin Mining is CEO Peter Williams. Peter, welcome back.
Peter Williams: Thanks, Rachael.
Rachael Jones: Aus Tin Mining has recently undertaken testing for ore sorting at Taronga. Would you mind explaining how ore sorting works, and what the benefits are?
Peter Williams: I'd be delighted to. We're actually very encouraged by the results. What we've obtained with the results is that a significant amount of waste can be generated, and separated from the ore whilst recovering the majority of the tin. In the overall results, we actually saw about 37 per cent of the waste that was rejected, but still recovering about 96 per cent of the tin, so very good results. But what was particularly interesting was the fact that at a slightly smaller size range where liberation has had more an effect, and separated the valuable cassiterite from the waste material. We got quite an extraordinary result in that we rejected almost 66 per cent of the waste whilst recovering 93 per cent of the tin, so certainly very encouraging. We're progressing with our next stage of work.
Rachael Jones: Aus Tin Mining reported successful results from the test work. Would you mind explaining the results and the implications for Taronga?
Peter Williams: The implications for Taronga down the track are that the size of the downstream processing plant would be significantly less, so if we adopted the results from the smaller increment, the 8 to 25 millimetre results there would be a hundred tons of material that goes through the crusher and in to the ore sorter. Only 34 tons are actually presented to the main plant, so that would actually see capital costs potentially reduced, and or an increase through to capacity.
Rachael Jones: Does ore sorting have application for your other projects?
Peter Williams: It certainly does, Rachael. At Granville Tin Project in Tasmania we have a number of legacy waste stockpiles, and there is the potential to treat those stockpiles, and recover the tin that may be in those, and certainly that's a practice that has been successfully implemented in other projects, tin projects, around the world, notably one in Peru. But, also ore sorting has some potential for Mount Cobalt. We actually undertook some work last year for ore sorting, and what we were able to show was there was a very significant difference between XRT sorted high grade material, and the waste material. You can see on the attached slide the darker zones within the slide are the high grade cobalt, or the asbolite, and so there is a potential to use ore sorting at Mount Cobalt to produce a beneficiated product.
Rachael Jones: Peter Williams, thanks for the update.
Peter Williams: Yeah same, Rachael. Thanks for that.
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