Heavy Minerals (ASX:HVY) is ramping up work across its Port Gregory Garnet Project in Western Australia with a Prefeasibility Study (PFS) on track to be completed by mid-2024 and prospective customers to soon be engaged.
Speaking to Mining.com.au on the sidelines of International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) on day one (31 October 2023), Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Andrew Taplin says the Port Gregory project will likely produce up to 150,000 tonnes of garnet per annum (tpa) by 2027.
“We have some ‘really exciting’ work just about to kick off. We will be doing some bulk sampling on-site, which will see about 50 tonnes of material removed from the tenement and put through the lab before being processed into the final product.
We will then be able to do some testing and start to share the final product with customers and hopefully get them signed up for some contracts.
We have just jumped into a Prefeasibility Study on the back of a recent Scoping Study that will be wrapped up by the middle of next year and give us a bit more precision around the project.”
Taplin tells this news service attending IMARC, which Mining.com.au is an official media partner, is an avenue to promote and educate the market on what garnet is and its wide-ranging applications.
“IMARC’s all about telling a story, getting out there and telling the story about Heavy and in particular about the Port Gregory Project, which we expect to have up and running by 2027 producing about 150,000 tonnes of garnet a year.
Garnet is the most superior blast medium that can be used for preparing metal surfaces before a coating is put on. It has been supplied out of the Geraldton area for over 40 years and we are working to start supplying that to the market in 2026/27.”
Heavy Minerals recently appointed Martinick Bosch Sell (MBS) Environmental to undertake permitting work at Port Gregory, as reported on 23 October.
MBS is evaluating all requirements to establish a ‘robust’ permitting strategy and tactical plan — another ‘key’ milestone essential for reaching a final investment decision (FID).
Heavy Minerals is an ASX-listed explorer with a portfolio of projects considered prospective for industrial minerals including but not limited to garnet, zircon, rutile, and ilmenite.
The company’s Port Gregory project is located in Western Australia and has a JORC (2012) measured, indicated, and inferred Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) of 166 million tonnes (Mt) @ 4% total heavy minerals, which includes 5.9Mt of contained garnet and 260,000 tonnes of ilmenite.
Write to Adam Drought at Mining.com.au
Images: Heavy Minerals
