The Hillgrove Mine has moved a step closer to being recommissioned with Emu Nickel unveiling a strategy to acquire the mine and bring it back into production within 12 months.
Emu Nickel, which views its planned transition from nickel explorer to antimony and gold producer as a company maker, said last week that it would now put its acquisition proposal to shareholders for approval at a meeting in Perth on March 9.
Hillgrove is one of the largest antimony resources outside of China, but was put on care and maintenance in 2009 by owner, Straits Resources, due to processing issues.
Emu’s strategy provides for the outright purchase of a company called ANCOA NL which announced last August it had agreed to acquire Hillgrove from Straits Resources, the current owner.
Emu plans to upgrade the plant to produce two concentrates rather than pure metal, a plan which avoids the Straits’ processing issues.
ANCOA will complete its acquisition, from Straits, of Hillgrove and surrounding exploration acreage raise $60 million to fund the acquisition and recommissioning of the mine.
“For the past 18 months, we have examined but rejected many project proposals put to us,” said Emu Nickel’s Chairman, Mr Peter Thomas.
“The Hillgrove proposition stands head and shoulders above all other submittals. Project opportunities of the maturity of Hillgrove and at such sensible pricing, are extremely rare.”
On the proposed acquisition, Mr Thomas said the dynamics of the global antimony market had changed dramatically in the past five years.
“Of global mine production – estimated at 157,000 tonnes in 2010 – China produces around 77 per cent,” Mr Thomas said.
“Yet Chinese mine production has been constrained due to a number of factors including Chinese Government policies and rapidly diminishing Chinese reserves of antimony – an environment which has resulted in significant and sustained increases in the antimony price.
Mr Thomas said antimony was an essential specialty metal used in many applications in daily life including flame retardants (~50 per cent), alloying with other metals (~40 per cent) and as a catalyst in plastic manufacture (~10 per cent). Antimony tops the British Geological Survey’s list of elements the supply constraints on which threaten maintenance of the world’s economy and lifestyle.
Mr Thomas said the significant untapped exploration potential of the Hillgrove tenements was demonstrated by the two discoveries made by the only modern exploration recently undertaken away from existing mining areas
