Green reported in September, 2021 that co-mining by the InterGroup Mining's kaolin and gold project offers the potential to generate highly compelling economics by supplying multiple valuable products:
- Rapidly expanding kaolin and gold project at a great address. InterGroup Mining’s (IGM) Brilliant Brumby Project lies in an under explored but highly prospective area in the rich Charters Towers Gold Province, NE Queensland, Australia. Brilliant Brumby is shaping up to be a potentially large scale near surface gold deposit.
- Analysis of drill logs from the Surprise Prospect has also revealed a substantial kaolin resource (600 m in strike, 600-800 m wide and 5m – 18 m thick) produced by the hydrothermal alteration of the host rock granite that surrounds the gold bearing quartz lodes – offering the potential to co-mine kaolin and gold.
- Laboratory tests have revealed that Brumby kaolin is a high value product. Extensive test work on the highly kaolinized saprolite samples from Brumby has revealed that the resource contains some significant high-quality kaolin. Market opportunities include supplying the major users - the paper & ceramics industries. Test work results have already established the potential for the use as a pozzolan to improve the qualities of concrete as well as upgrading the material to 4N, and possibly, 5N high purity alumina (HPA). Progress is now being made towards developing production operations for saleable grade kaolin and metakaolin.
- High quality Brumby metakaolin is being positioned to attract a premium price. Metakaolin is a leading Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) that may be used as a part of cement. There seems to be a growing division between the use of high quality more reactive SCMs and filler SCMs in the cement industry. Metakaolin and silica fume are showing promising and durability performance whilst all the other SCMs are deemed second rate. IGM plans to employ state-of-the-art flash calcining technology to produce a consistent high-quality High Reactivity Metakaolin
(HRM) which is an obvious premium product. - Big green drivers – use of metakaolin in cement can cut COâ‚‚ emissions by 40%. The cement industry is one of the worst polluters on the planet, but the major players are already committed to delivering carbon-neutral cement by 2050. A central theme of this seems to be the increasing use of metakaolin which offers the opportunity to earn carbon credits. The Paris Agreement looks likely to continue to increase demand for carbon credits driving up prices. All this means that the carbon credit market represents an additional end-market driver.
- Gold production costs at Brumby could be very low by global standards. High-grade near-surface gold mineralisation suggests low-cost mining via a series of shallow open pits with straight forward processing. The growing appreciation of the sheer scale of the high-quality, near-surface kaolin potential that encase the gold bearing veins in the key areas of this property provides the very realistic prospect of co-mining. Certainly, this unique, mineralogical combination of kaolin and gold could allow for mining costs to be shared which could set the scene for the creation of a
low-cost operation by global standards.
[ Full Disclosure: InterGroup Mining is a client of I2M Consulting and Associates, LLC over the past 10 years and has conducted numerous investigations for Intergroup:
Exploration Progress Review: https://igmining.com/epsaveeg/2021/04/26_3_14.pdf
Initial CPR Report: http://www.i2mconsultants.com/downloads/corp/BrilliantBrumby/BrilliantBrumbyDraft03312011ver1.3.pdf ]
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