(Alliance News) - Amur Minerals Corp on Monday said it has begun a TEO reserve estimation programme for its Kun-Manie nickel copper sulphide project in Russia.
Shares in the miner were down 12% at 2.51 pence in London shortly before midday.
The permanent conditions TEO, an independently compiled Russian feasibility study, is due December 2020 and is necessary for proceeding to the next stage of Kun-manie's development.
Amur noted that "the TEO includes the delineation of the project's operational plan and derivation of the State Committee on Reserves (GKZ) approved reserves identified for mining and beneficiation of the ores at Kun-Manie".
OOO Oreol, a Moscow-based company, has been chosen by Amur to compile the TEO and the GKZ approved reserves. The comprehensive data base has been sent to Oeol, but the resource estimates of each of the deposits at Kun-Manie are still being ompiles.
Amur Chief Executive Robin Young said: "The company is fully focused on compiling the Permanent Conditions TEO. Results from the mandatory TEO will serve to provide key information for inclusion in the Kun-Manie western based definitive feasibility Study. Having completed the consolidation of our global exploration data set and the detailed review of the [Quality Assurance/Quality Control] programmes for 2015 to 2018, the final GKZ reserve and JORC resource estimates are now being compiled. We anticipate a considerable increase in the resource and reserve inventory due to the newly discovered mineralisation identified during the 2018 field season.
"On the operational side, much of this year has been spent defining the project specifications, agreeing contracts, preparing information and reports for inclusion in the TEO and defining the critical path for the work programme. A majority of the TEO work will be used in the compilation of the [definitive feasibility study]. Work is already well advanced with regard to hydrological, rock mechanics and identification of environmental mitigation procedures that may be required. Metallurgical test work and flowsheet design programmes have been agreed and are close to being initiated. As work progresses, we will update the market of results as they become available."
