The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
I would certainly like an introduction to David Cather … can anyone provide contact details ?
It would good if David could make an annoucement at the upcoming AGM that alternative process routes are being studied ( no promises ) but checking out the alternatives is the right thing to do
Ian Gordon
Ian Gordon Hall Dun
Yes you are right it should read 15 years ago( and not 25 years ago )
The initial testing was done in 3 Australian laboratorties in the 2008-2009 period …. All 3 laboratories stated that the mineralogy was Ferberite and not Wolframite
The present plant operated for the 3 years ( 2015- 2018) until some one took the bold decision and closed the operation ..,, why does TWL want to return the old circuit to operate again without sorting out the fundamentals error in the circuit ?
The solution is to spend less money and not more money
The operation must have costs that are well within the present WO3 price …. And it important that this new proposed circuit will use considerably less energy and be much more simple to control and operate … sustainability is very important
The mineral reserve is very good and great work has been done by the TWL geological team ….. they need to look at the project under a different light … present concerns seem to be focused on getting the licenses … but the licenses are for the wrong plant and will have to be all redone ….. let’s focus on the heart of the problem and this is an ideal time to change the music and reactivate the market investors ….. there is no solution if upper management is not being fed the necessary alternatives ( at least for discussion)
Ian Gordon
Crushing circuit (rented) preparing the mineral into 2 sizes ( > 10mm > 25mm & > 25mm > 50mm
- feed each size into the respective ore sorting circuit( high in energy to the necessary compressed air used to blow off the enriched rocks )
-crush the enriched rocks to 100%< 15mm
- Feed this product to a Ball Mill ( there are 2 units already installed) in closed circuit with a 2mm screen to produce a 100< 2mm product
-feed this product ro a wet magnetic separator working at 15000’gauss where a pre concebtateof WO3 is obtained
- the non magnetic tailing is fed to the existing Sn recovery circuit ( no modifications are required)!
- final WO3 upgrading is obtained with the use of RE rolls to remove the impurities
As a background check on my experiences in this mineral field I was involved with the BIsie project ( Alphamin Resources) in the DRC where I went to South aftica for 8 months and did all the metallurgical testing and
Involved in the engineering design as i was based in the DRA offices and I did the plant commissioning during a 60
Day period in 2019 on site at Bisie, Bisie is today the 5th largest producer of tin in the world
Look forward to help in this TWL tangle !!!
The OUTOTEC ( Research Centre ,Frankfurt ) report of 2019 is available to interested parties on the primary magnetic separation and this work was contracted by TWL and I was an observer at this work
Why was it ignored ? And still being ignored ? Can upper management reply on this question ?
Thank you Valustion -it-is for your comments
Can the upper management not publish ( at least to their holders and stake holders) their engineering progress in this plant design and modifications ?
The basic truth is that the fatal mistake i in this clumsy
Plant does need a dense medium circuit to concentrate the paramagnetic mineral ( Ferberite)
The ore sorting technology is a good inclusion into the circuit but the dense medium can be bypassed ( about 60% of the plant)!…. Then you would have a significant reduction in energy
Magnetic technology is well advanced in 2023 with the new Rare Earth magnets which have powers to separate out minerals …. … the WOLF MINERALs installed 16 x cross belt magnetic separators but these are not used nowadays due the arrival of RE rolls ( Rare Earth magnets ) one must remember that WOLF did their design work in 2008 some 25 years back …. Technology has since advanced rapidly
There is no need to purchase crushers ( using up Capex ) and crushing units can easily be rented from well known manufacturers
- crushing circuit (rented) preparing the mineral into 2 sizes ( > 10mm 25mm
WOLF Minerals built a six bedroom house with garages for 5 cars where you only needed a small 1 bedroom flat with perhaps 1 garage !!!
The plant is already built and it would be too costly to take it down so parts of the plant can be left without repair or upgrading as they not needed
Some new additional equipment needs to be added to correct the fundamental error in the plant design done by WOLF Minerals and the present management needs to be pushed and persuaded into making the necessary changes to a much simpler plant design using less energy and getting much better metallurgical results …. Keep it simple
Thanks for return and hope others can come on board and get changes of project direction at the upcoming AGM on 10/10
If anyone wants to have technical discussions on the detailed plant changes I would welcome a conference call
Ian Gordon Hall Dun
igordon@uol.com.br
+55 21 98444 0926 ….
I present myself as a Metallurgical engineer who graduated in 1971 from RSM, Imperial college in Mineral Technology and have been active in this mineral world to this day and continue with projects all over the World
I discovered the Wolf Minerals error after the plant had been shut down by reading the 2007/2008 Australian laboratory reports and the Tungsten mineral is Ferberite and not Wolframite …. However Wolf built the plant for Wolframite recovery and not Ferberite !!!! The fatal error in that they designed the plant for the wrong mineral and the result was low recovery during the 3 years of operation ( 2025-2018)
I got awarded TUN shares for my discovery
Present project work has not taken the paramagnetic route into the plant design
However this can be corrected as Ferberite is a paramagnetic mineral which means it can be easily recovered by high magnetic fields and this route was tested in 2019 in the renowned OUTOTEC research centre with success … report is available to interested parties ( please contact me)
This implies that the dense medium circuit of the present plant is not necessary and no need to repair or upgrade it
This results in low Capex to get the circuit back in operation and also low Opex in the operating costs
Look forward to helping the turn around of the present situation
Keep it simple
Do some simple laboratory work to prove the concept ( all this work can be done in UK )
Ian Gordon Hall Dun ( British … sorry Scottish !! )
+ 55 21 98444 0926 ( with Whatsapp)
igordon@uol.com.br