Balla Balla Project Fly-through
Transcript
Fast‐growing West Australian iron ore developer Aurox Resources is positioned to join the elite ranks of world‐class minerals producers in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The Pilbara is synonymous with iron ore mining success. Stretching from Onslow to Port Hedland, the region accommodates operations for some of the world's largest mining companies.
Aurox Resources' key asset is the Balla Balla iron ‐vanadium‐titanium project located within the West Pilbara Mineral Field.
The Balla Balla project is located 100 kilometres southwest of Australia's largest bulk‐export iron ore facilities at Port Hedland.
Balla Balla is a world‐class sized, near surface titanomagnetic deposit covering an 18.5 kilometres strike length and extending beyond 500m in depth.
The titanomagnetite ore to be mined and processed at Balla Balla contains Iron, Titanium and Vanadium.
The operation will exploit all three products to create three revenue streams with one set of overheads.
The 238 million tonnes of ore reserves are high‐grade with a simple geometry continuous along the entire 18.5 kilometre strike length.
Aurox will be employing simple open cut mining techniques to extract the Balla Balla ore.
After extraction the drill and blast material will be loaded onto trucks by excavator for transport to the concentrate plant.
In the first 3 years of operations Balla Balla will produce six million tonnes of iron concentrate and 280 thousand tonnes of titanium dioxide concentrate annually.
This will increase to 10 million tonnes iron concentrate and 480 thousand tonnes of titanium dioxide concentrate per year for the remaining mine life.
Subsequent expansion will include construction of a vanadium plant capable of producing 7000 tonnes of ferrovanadium annually as well as one million tonnes of saleable iron concentrate bi‐product.
A buried pipeline will transport the iron ore concentrate as a slurry from Balla Balla to Utah Point port facility in Port Hedland. Here a de‐watering facility will separate the water from the iron concentrate.
This method of transportation is a key to maintaining Balla Balla's low operating costs.
Once the iron ore has been filtered and separated it will be stockpiled ready for loading onto ships for export.
The slurry operation also provides the opportunity to leave up to five gigalitres of filter decant water per year at Port Hedland to be used by all port users for dust suppression and equipment wash down, assisting in conserving local drinking water reserves.
The iron concentrate from Balla Balla has received much interest from overseas parties.
The company has already successfully negotiated off‐take agreements for the product with customers from China.
Recently Aurox signed a Heads of Agreement with leading Chinese mining engineering service provider MMC Overseas Ltd, for engineering, procurement and construction services.
As a low‐cost producer of iron concentrate, the world's most significant new source of vanadium, and a top ten titanium feedstock producer, Balla Balla is a world‐class mining project.
Aurox Resources eagerly anticipates a bright future as the newest producing mining company in the mineral‐rich Pilbara region.