PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Vanadium miner Atlantic on Friday revealed that its Windimurra plant, in Western Australia, would require a A$130-million investment to implement a new crushing, milling and beneficiation (CBM) flow sheet design and to assist with debottlenecking the project.

Atlantic reported a fire at the Windimurra beneficiation plant in February this year, prompting it to halt vanadium production for at least 12 months while the beneficiation plant was demolished and rebuilt.

The company took the opportunity to review its business, as well as the mine plan and CBM circuit of the Windimurra plant, based on its commissioning and ramp-up experience over the last two years.

The miner said on Friday that the review had revealed certain bottlenecks, along with solutions to these, to facilitate the plant meeting production levels that would provide a long-term sustainable basis for the business going forward.

The primary production bottleneck identified related to the inability of the plant to reliably produce sufficient magnetite concentrate feed to match the capacity of the downstream refinery.

The recommended course of action involved a revision to the Windimurra process flow sheet, which included replacing the existing secondary and tertiary crushers and high pressure grinding rolls with a semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill.

In addition, the review also identified a number of less significant debottlenecking projects which Atlantic would complete concurrently with the installation of the SAG mill.

The company noted that with the new process flow sheet and the rebuild of the fire-damaged beneficiation plant, the project would likely produce around 4 800 t/y to 5 200 t/y of contained vanadium.

A plan has been put in place to right-size the business to take into account these production levels, which were lower than previously envisaged for the company.

To fund the proposed capital expenditure and the working capital required to implement the proposed process improvements, Atlantic would require additional funding, the miner said.

The company was in discussions with a number of sources, including existing stakeholders, regarding this additional required funding, as well as an appropriate longer-term capital structure for the business.

If financing is secured, Atlantic would likely be able to implement the changes within the next 12 months.

This work would not delay the reconstruction of the beneficiation plant or extend the period of business interruption insurance coverage, which would continue in parallel.