117% increase in JORC Resource at Pedra Branca

RNS Number : 2027O

Jangada Mines PLC

28 January 2019

 

Jangada Mines plc / EPIC: JAN.L / Market: AIM / Sector: Mining

28 January 2019

 Jangada Mines plc ('Jangada' or the 'Company')

117% increase in JORC Resource at Pedra Branca Project

Jangada Mines plc, a natural resources company developing South America's largest and most advanced platinum group metals ('PGM') and nickel project, is pleased to announce a significant JORC (2012) compliant resource upgrade resulting in substantial increases in the size and categorisation of the resource at its Pedra Branca PGM project ('Pedra Branca' or 'the Project') in north-eastern Brazil.

Highlights

·     117% increase in JORC classified ore to 74.84 million tonnes:

o  64% increase in the Indicated category resources to 29.34 million tonnes

o  174% increase in Inferred category resources to 37.09 million tonnes

·     103% increase in palladium equivalent ('Pd Eq') resource to 3.05 million ounces, derived from the following increases:

·     48% increase in PGM+gold ('Au') resource to 2.17 million ounces

·     104% increase in base metal content to 362.5 million pounds ('Mlbs') attributed to newly discovered nickel sulphide resource including:

o  298 Mlbs nickel ('Ni')

o  49.5 Mlbs copper ('Cu')

o  15 Mlbs cobalt ('Co')

·     Overall resource grade is 1.31 g/t Pd Eq

·     Verification phase of the fully funded Bankable Feasibility Study ('BFS') on track for completion by end Q1 2019

Brian McMaster, Executive Chairman of Jangada said, "Clearly today's announcement is a significant step forward for Jangada.  We have been working with a highly skilled team on the BFS work, which has identified significant increases in grade and classification that will help form extremely exciting inputs to the BFS model.  Investors can now see that labelling this a 'PGM project' doesn't do it justice; it is clearly much more than that.  The key economic drivers of the Project are palladium and nickel, two of the most in favour minerals of today and for the foreseeable future.  Additionally, the increase in resource size will potentially drive a longer mine life and higher annual tonnage, all of which are positive developments.  The work being done to finalise the BFS and prepare the Project for development is exceptional and the results are coming through better than expected."

Further Information

Resource Update

As part of the BFS at Pedra Branca, the Company retained Minxcon Projects ('Minxcon') to review and update the Project database and JORC (2012) resource for PGM and base metals.  This review excluded any impact from the vanadium anomaly announced on 23 October 2017. 

Minxcon's review included a complete rebuild of the resource geological, structural and estimation models.  This updated resource estimate and resource classification are the inputs that will form the foundation for the BFS.  Given the reclassification of much of the ore body to Measured and Indicated and the substantial increase in resources size, coupled with the expected significant decrease in capital expenditure requirements (as announced 12 November 2018), the Company anticipates that the economic viability of the Project will be further amplified beyond that disclosed in the Preliminary Economic Assessment ('PEA') announced 18 June 2018.

 The new Pedra Branca JORC (2012) resource is summarised in the table below and includes:

Pedra Branca		Tonnes	Grade	Metal Content
Resource Classification			Pd Eq	Pd Eq	PGM+Au
		Mt	g/t	Moz	Moz
Indicated		29.34	1.36	1.240	0.875
Inferred		45.50	1.28	1.809	1.293
Indicated and Inferred		74.84	1.31	3.050	2.168

A detailed element and contained metal table is contained in Annexure A at the end of this announcement.

Background

The Pedra Branca Project is the largest and most advanced PGM and nickel project in South America and currently has a JORC compliant resource of approximately 2.17 million ounces of PGM+Au at a grade of 1.3 g/t Pd Eq, 298 Mlbs of Ni, 49.5 Mlbs of Cu and 15 Mlbs of Co. The Project is located 280 km from the port city of Fortaleza in the northeast of Brazil and holds three mining licenses and 43 exploration licenses over an area of 48 000 ha.

Previous operators have spent more than US$35 million on exploration and development activities, which include 30,000 meters of diamond core drilling, geophysical surveys and metallurgical tests. The current resources are at surface and are amenable to open pit mining and conventional processing methods.

Minxcon

Minxcon Projects forms part of the Minxcon group of companies and is a South Africa based company specialising in the design and building of mining and metallurgical projects.  It works across various jurisdictions to deliver scoping-level, pre-feasibility, feasibility studies and EPC functions for a wide spectrum of clients, including major and mid-tier PGM producers Anglo American Platinum, Royal Bafokeng Platinum, Lonmin, Sibanye, Platinum Group Metals, African Rainbow Minerals and Eastplats.

Minxcon is qualified to conduct Resource Estimations on most commodities including: PGMs, precious metals, base metals, industrial minerals and coal. Minxcon's reports comply with local and international reporting standards and have been globally accepted in all the reporting jurisdictions including the JSE, ASX, AIM, TSE, NYSE and others.

Competent Person

The information in this statement which relates to the Mineral Resource is based on information compiled by Mr Uwe Engelmann who is a geologist and full-time director of Minxcon. Mr Engelmann has sufficient relevant experience to the style of mineralisation to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code (2012). Mr Engelmann also meets the requirements of a qualified person under the AIM Note for Mining, Oil and Gas Companies.

Annexure A - Additional Notes

1. Resource Cut-off of 0.6 g/t Pd Equivalent

2. PdEq = Pd+(Pt*0.965)+(Au*0.714)+(Ni*1.834)+(Cu*2.033)+(Cr*0.063)+(Co*1.183)

3. Only resources falling with in the resource pit declared (RPEEE)

4. Geological losses of 10% for Indicated and 15% for Inferred were applied

5. RPEEE resource prices used: Pt = USD1,224/oz, Pd = USD1,250/oz, Au = USD1,500/oz, Ni = USD19,270/t, Cu = USD7,216/t, Cr = USD258/t & Co = USD46,171/t

6. Mineral resources are stated as inclusive of ore reserves (no ore reserves declared at this stage).

7. Mineral resources are reported as total mineral resources and are not attributed.

8. Numbers may not add exactly due to rounding

The updated JORC (2012) resource as represented above has integrated the PGM-Ni-Cu resource and the recently announced (17 December 2018) maiden nickel sulphide resource. The newly included base metal sulphide ore has previously been excluded from historic metallurgy test programs due to its recent discovery. Further metallurgical test work is required to confirm the modifying factors, including recoverability and cut-off grade as it pertains to the newly included nickel dominated ore.

The following table contains the detailed element and contained metals summary.

Pedra Branca		Grades
Resource Classification		2E+Au	Pt	Pd	Au	Ni	Cu	Cr	Co
		g/t	g/t	g/t	g/t	%	%	%	%
Indicated		0.90	0.30	0.58	0.03	0.20	0.03	0.40	0.009
Inferred		0.90	0.33	0.55	0.03	0.17	0.03	0.40	0.009
Indicated and Inferred		0.90	0.32	0.56	0.03	0.18	0.03	0.40	0.009
		Metal Content
Resource Classification			Pt	Pd	Au	Ni	Cu	Co	Cr
			oz	Oz	Oz	Mlb	Mlb	Mlb	t
Indicated			274,413	527,235	23,240	126.6	22.46	5.78	116,390
Inferred			461,154	773,416	37,984	168.4	27.03	9.21	298,169
Indicated and Inferred			760,334	1,344,445	63,286	298.0	49.5	15.0	303,206

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR").

* ENDS *

For further information, please visit www.jangadamines.com or contact:

Jangada Mines plc	Brian McMaster (Chairman)	Tel: [phone]
Strand Hanson Limited (Nominated & Financial Adviser)	James Spinney Ritchie Balmer Jack Botros	Tel: [phone]
Brandon Hill Capital (Broker)	Jonathan Evans Oliver Stansfield	Tel: [phone]
St Brides Partners Ltd (Financial PR)	Isabel de Salis Gaby Jenner	Tel: [phone]

 

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