Aquila Resources had a wide range of assets at various stages of development spanning coal, iron ore and manganese in Australia, South Africa and Botswana.
Aquila Resources unveils high grade managanese ore resource in South Africa
Aquila Resources (ASX:AQA) has announced a maiden Inferred Manganese Resource (JORC compliant) of 34.3 million tonnes at 39.9%MN for its Avontuur Manganese Project, located 75km north west of Kuruman, in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.
The above Inferred Manganese Resources have been identified within the 74% owned Avontuur Manganese Project, which comprises a permit area of 370sq km. The manganese discoveries were identified on two mineralised prospects some 20km apart, directly north of the Kalahari Manganese Field in South Africa.
The Gravenhage Resource is located in the Avontuur Basin, approximately 30km north of the world renowned Kalahari Manganese Field. The Resource occurs from 51m depth and is considered suitable to open pit and subsequent decline underground mining.
The Eersbegint Resource is located in the northern extent of the Kalahari Manganese Field and occurs at 300m depth, similar to the Wessels mine approximately 10km to the south which is currently in production by Samancor producing approximately 1Mt of high-grade manganese ore per annum.
Significant potential to expand the Resource which currently has 5km in strike . There is significant scope to increase the quantity and quality of the Gravenhage Inferred Manganese Resource by further exploration in the interpreted higher grade areas of the resource, down dip and extensions to existing drilling and elsewhere along the 10km east and southern margins of the Avontuur Basin.
Development Potential
The northern edge of the Avontuur Basin and the approximately 5km strike extent of the Gravenhage Manganese Resource are overlain by between 50 and 60m of Kalahari sands. The shallow depth of the manganese resource indicates suitability to a combination of open pit and subsequent underground mining by declining. The Avontuur Project is located in flat topography proximal to road, rail, power, groundwater and other mining related infrastructure in the Kalahari Manganese Field area.
The maiden Avontuur Resource Statement of 34Mt at 40% manganese together with the exploration potential highlighted above presents the company an opportunity to consider development scenarios of up to 1Mtpa high grade managanese ore from this Project.
Manganese ore is used in the steel making process primarily in the form of silico-manganese and ferro-manganese alloys. Most production of manganese is directed towards steel production where approximately 10kg of manganese is used for every tonne of steel produced. Cost, Insurance, Freight (CIF) prices for manganese ore have recently been as high as US$17 per dry metric tonne unit, although the recent reduction in steel production has seen that price reduce to around US$5.50 per dry metric tonne unit for the current quarter of 2009.
The Kalahari Manganese Field in South Africa is the only producer of high grade manganese ore outside of Australia and Gabon. South Africa and Australia are the major suppliers of seaborne trade in manganese.
Significant global resource
in terms of scale of Aquila's initial resource, BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) and Anglo American have a manganese mine at Groote Eylandt, Australia that has a resource of 164Mt @ 46%Mn, with managanese production of 3.5Mtpa @ 46%Mn. This indicates that Aquila's manganese resource is globally significant in size and grade
