Cyclone Metals Ltd (ASX:CLE) has produced what it describes as a “class-leading” iron ore product with metallurgical test work on ore from the flagship Block 103/Iron Bear Magnetite Project, achieving a blast furnace concentrate of 68.7% iron with low impurities and silica content below 3.5%.
The company achieved high recoveries of more than 97% from a sediment bulk sample of 1.6 tonnes containing 17% iron, a good representative of the overall deposit, which on average contains 18% iron.
The magnetite concentrate (produced at the Corem pilot plant) is of high enough quality to attract a US$25 per tonne premium compared to a lower purity benchmark of 62% iron, for a total of US$159 per tonne in cost and freight (CFR) Chinese iron ore markets.
Major milestone
“We have achieved a major milestone in the development of our flagship Iron Bear Project by demonstrating that we can easily produce a class-leading 68.7% Fe (ferritin, or iron) grade iron ore product with a 97% magnetite recovery,” Cyclone Metals CEO Paul Berend said.
“Given the massive scale of the deposit, the access to rail and port infrastructure, this is starting to look like the future.
“We are working hard to define a premium ultra-low silica direct reduction magnetite product which will be very attractive to European steel makers looking to reduce their carbon footprint.
“We are targeting to introduce this unique premium product to the steel industry as early as the first quarter of next year.”
CLE is working on an even higher quality product of premium, direct-reduction magnetite concentrate of more than 70% iron and silica below 1.5%, which would open the door to applications in ultra-low carbon steel production.
Steel production accounts for somewhere between 7.2% and 11% of global carbon emissions, meaning reducing the industry’s carbon impact would have important implications for the decarbonisation effort.
Cyclone is preparing a flow sheet for production of blast furnace grade concentrate, which it says will have high yields and recovery rates and low grinding costs.
The company intends to begin phase 2 metallurgical work on more than 10 tonnes of core sediments in early 2024, which will involve building a pilot plant to test the performance and optimise the process flow sheet.
Cyclone also remains on track to deliver all the operational milestones planned for Q4 2023.