MMC starts operating second module of coal handling plant at UkhaaKhudag

MMC starts operating second module of coal handling plant at UkhaaKhudag

Mongolian Mining Corp. (MMC) has received the State Commission’s approval to begin operations at the second module of its coal handling and preparation plant at UkhaaKhudag coking coal mine. Construction took approximately 14 months and cost USD 91 million, as estimated. Sedgman Ltd. of Australia was responsible for design, procurement of materials and construction management.

The addition will double the plant’s production capacity to 10 million tons a year. It is expected to annually produce some 5 million tons of run-of-mine coal, or 560 tons an hour with 6,000 hours of operation a year.


SouthGobi commissions dry coal handling facility at OvootTolgoi

The dry coal-handling facility successfully commissioned in February by SouthGobi Resources Ltd. at its OvootTolgoi coal mine canprocess nine million tonnes of run-of-mine (ROM) coal per year. The facility includes a 300-tonne-capacity dump hopper, which will receive ROM coal to feed a rotary breaker and screens that will size coal to a maximum of 50 mm and reject oversize ash.

The DCHF will be upgraded during the year to include dry air separation, as well as covered load-out conveyors with fan stackers to transfer processed coals to stockpiles that will enable blending. “The facility will improve the quality of our coal and enable us to achieve better product consistency,” said President and CEO, Alexander Molyneux. “It represents the first step towards more integrated processing at OvootTolgoi, which will create more value than mining and selling raw coal.”

Mongolian Resource awaits licence to operate flotation plant

Mongolian Resource Corp. is awaiting grant of a cyanide use licence to begin operations of a 100-ton-per-day stage I flotation plant at its project in central north Mongolia. The company expects to begin treating its stockpiles of gold ore in early April 2012 when temperatures rise to above -10 degrees Celsius. It has also completed the front end engineering design work for the stage II 400-ton-per-day carbon-in-pulp gold plant, with capacity to crush up to 1,500 tons a day. Additional ball mills can be added to increase capacity if a larger resource is defined at the project.

The Mongolian Resource mine is on the same fault system as Boroo and Gatsuurt, which both host over two million ounces. It is a high-grade underground project that was previously mined for three years with ore shoot grades about 35 grams per ton of gold.

Haranga Resources expands iron mineralisation area at Bayantsogt

Haranga Resources has expanded the area and depth of iron mineralisation hosted within the Banded Magnetite Skarn formation at the Bayantsogt prospect of its Selenge Iron Ore Project. This follows the receipt of the final set of assay results from its 2011 Bayantsogt drill program, where 31 of the 35 drill holes intersected significant widths of iron mineralisation.
Haranga said the mineralisation at Bayantsogt remains open in every direction including at depth and that the width and grade of the iron lodes generally increase at depth. This includes a large, high grade core commencing approximately 150m vertical depth from the base of the Bayantsogt hill.

Altan Rio begins pass drilling at Khavchuu Gold Project

Altan Rio Minerals Limited has announced that the first drilling campaign at the Khavchuu gold exploration project covering 7.14 km2 in TovAimagbegan in early March with two diamond core drills, and will be finished in about a month. The company currently has an option to acquire 100% interest in the project that contains significant geophysical and gold-arsenic geochemical anomalies in a Boroo mine type orogenic gold setting and has never been drilled. The planned reconnaissance drilling is designed to test a large tract of geology over an area of approximately 5 km x 6 km, searching for key structural features such as low-angle fault zones. Three main areas will be drilled in this first effort to gain knowledge of the subsurface stratigraphy and structure and six holes encompassing 1,800 meters of diamond core drilling are planned.

Rock sampling and detailed soil geochemical grids in 2011 in the northwestern quarter of the project showed robust arsenic anomalies coincident with IP chargeability highs, over several NW oriented structures. Low-level gold anomalies were also present. This combination - coincident gold, arsenic and IP highs - is fundamental to all economic deposits discovered thus far in the Boroogol District. During sampling, the team also discovered a small zone of quartz veining hosting visible gold.

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