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At Borralha, PanEx proposes to produce around 1% of world production and 10% of European consumption of tungsten.
Completed drilling shows that the deposit has the potential to become one of the lowest-cost tungsten producers. Low capital and operating costs, and a beneficial social and environmental location, make this a near-term, low-cost producer.
Competent local professionals will complement the PanEx team and take the project from the initial phases through to production.
Proposed method
We propose open-pit mining of a breccia body containing coarse wolframite that is recoverable by simple crushing and gravity methods.
Wolframite mineralisation is hosted in a 25 megatonne (Mt) pipe-like breccia body drilled to 130m below a surface outcropping on the side of a hill.
The breccia has also been intersected near and on the surface by adits from previous mining in the mid-1900s. The mineralised zone within the breccia appears to be between 40m and 90m wide.
Earning potential and market
PanEx has the right to earn 90% by spending CAD5 million or by taking the project to feasibility study, with a possibility to acquire the remaining 10%.
Besides Borralha, there are a number of other wolframite deposits in our portfolio at Vila Verde, 50km to the south, that could be part of a longer-term strategy to become a significant tungsten producer.
China is the currently world’s largest producer and consumer of tungsten. Shrinking production and the increased use of tungsten in the country means China is expected to become a net importer by the mid-2020s. By 2020, Europe will still produce less than half of its own tungsten requirement of around 16,000 tpa WO3.
Progress to date
A programme is under way to
complete resource drilling for grade distribution and mine planning, and
to acquire bulk samples for metallurgical work for plant design. A
quantity of wolframite concentrate for potential off-takers will also be
produced.
The base case, using a grade of 0.2% WO3, 80% recovery, a
1:1 strip ratio, sales price of USD290 per MTU, and USD14 million in
capex, shows attractive returns.
Location
PanEx’s Borralha Tungsten Project is located 80 km east of Porto, Portugal, in a historical mining area that has excellent infrastructure.
Estimated grade and yield
The current grade is estimated at 0.16% WO3, but PanEx wishes to drill more and apply a cut-off to achieve a target of 11Mt at 0. % WO3 at low-strip ratio.
Our intent is to commission a 1,200,000 tpa (tonnes per annum) mine to produce more than 1,500 tpa of wolframite concentrate.
PanEx Resources’s core business is mining project identification and development. This encompasses everything from discovery, through confirmatory drilling, interpretation and resource definition, metallurgical testwork, preliminary economic evaluation, raising of finance, preliminary and definitive engineering studies, assessment of environmental and social factors and security of tenure.