Name of the Project
Ancuabe graphite project.

Location
Cabo Delgado province, Mozambique.

Project Owner/s
Triton Minerals. Shandong Tianye Mining (STM) has a 19.4% shareholding in the Triton.

Project Description
Ancuabe has a maiden Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant ore reserve of 24.9-million tonnes at 6.2% total graphitic carbon based on the T12 and T16 mineral deposits.

A definitive feasibility study (DFS) on the deposits has confirmed the high quality, long life and high margin of the graphite project.

The DFS is based on the production of about 60 000 t/y of graphite concentrate over 27 years. The mine plan is based on the ore reserve, and less than 5% of the production is sourced from inferred mineral resources, which is mined to access the ore reserve.

It is planned that conventional drill-and-blast, load-and-haul, openpit mining will be used to extract the mineralised material. Run-of-mine (RoM) feed will be defined by grade-control procedures in the pit, and delivered by truck to the RoM pad located centrally between the T12 and T16 deposits. Waste will need to be classified according to its acid-forming potential and be dumped in managed waste dumps adjacent to the openpits. It is planned that mining will be carried out by an experienced earthmoving contractor.

Ancuabe’s process plant will have a throughput from 900 000 t/y to 1.1-million tonnes a year to produce an estimated 60 000 t/y graphite concentrate. The proposed process plant facilities include:
• an RoM pad,
• a tertiary crushing circuit,
• a rod mill feed bin and grinding circuit,
• rougher flotation,
• three stages of attritioning and five stages of cleaner flotation,
• concentrate filtration,
• concentrate drying, classification and bagging of three products,
• tailings thickening and storage, and
• reagents.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has an unleveraged pretax net present value, at a 10% discount rate, of $298-million and an internal rate of return of 36.8%, with a near-term payback of 3.8 years.

Capital Expenditure
Preproduction capital costs are estimated at $99.4-million, including contingency.

Planned Start /End Date
Production is planned to start in the second half 2019, subject to financing and board approvals.

Latest Developments
Triton Minerals has struck a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China’s Qingdao Jinhui Graphite Company that could result in the development of the Ancuabe graphite project.

The two companies will now start technical, legal and commercial due diligence and continue negotiations to execute a binding agreement within the next six months.

It is envisaged that the binding agreements will include a direct project-level investment of up to 10% of the Ancuabe project, financing support through concessional debt equipment financing facilities and the offtake of up to 15 000 t/y of graphite concentrate from Ancuabe. They will also include the  technical collaboration for value-added processing that will result in the Ancuabe graphite being supplied into China’s flame-retardants, refractories and battery markets.

“This MoU with Jinhui is a significant endorsement of the Ancuabe project,”  Triton MD Peter Canterbury has said.

Canterbury has noted that the MoU is also complementary to Triton’s financing discussions in China, which are progressing well.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Lycopodium and ADP Group (process and plant infrastructure); Knight Piésold (tailings and water storage facilities and site geotechnical investigations); CSA Global (geology and resources, as well as mining and mine design); IMO, ALS Metallurgy (metallurgical testwork); Major Drilling (project drilling); Intertek and Bureau Veritas (assays); and EOH Coastal & Environmental Services Limited (environmental-, social- and health-impact assessment) .

On Budget and on Time?
Too early to state.

Contact Details for Project Information
Triton Minerals, tel +61 8 6489 2555 or fax +61 8 6489 2556.