Mt cattlin

The Mt Cattlin open pit Tantalum and Spodumene mine located just two kilometres north of Ravensthorpe, in Western Australia, will be back in production in March, 2016, after being placed on care and maintenance by Galaxy Resources, in July, 2012.

General Mining Corporation to Re-start Mt Cattlin Mine in March 2016

The March, 2016, start-up is the result definitive earn-in agreement reached between Galaxy Resources and General Mining Corporation in June 2015. In the arrangement, mine owner Galaxy Resources, granted General Mining the right to solely operate the mine for a three year period with the option to purchase the mine outright at any time during that time. In effect, General Mining have acquired 50 percent of the Mt Cattlin project.

Galaxy Resources had placed the Mt Cattlin mine on care and maintenance as a result of costly delays being experienced with the construction of a lithium processing plant in China. The plant was sold to Chinese company Sichuan Tianqi Lithium Industries in April 2015.

Mitsubishi to be Sole Distributer of Mt Cattlin Concentrate

General Mining have recently announced that Japanese company Mitsubishi have been engaged to be the exclusive distributer of Mt Cattlin Spodumene concentrate in Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea and China.

Mt Cattlin to Have a Life of Mine of 17 Years

The Mt Cattlin mine is expected to have a life of mine of around 17 years mining at the rate of 800 thousand tonnes of ore a year. More than 100 thousand tonnes of Spodumene concentrate from the Mt Cattlin mine has already been successfully sold to be refined into technical and battery grade lithium carbonate. The concentrate this time around is to be shipped out of the Port of Esperance in preference to it being exported out of the port at Bunbury as was the practice previously.

Mt Cattlin ore to be Mined in Conventional Open pit Manner

The Mt Cattlin mining operation removes ore from a flat lying pegmatite ore body. The flat lying nature of the ore body lends itself to mining to be carried out at a constant strip ratio after the ore is uncovered.The mining of the ore is undertaken with the use of an excavator and haulage trucks. The trucks take the ore to a conventional crusher that incorporates a HMS (heavy, medium separation) gravity recovery circuit.

Mt Cattlin Processing Plant to Handle one Million Tonnes Annually

The Mt Cattlin processing plant is situated west of the Dowling pit which is located near the Ravensthorpe town. The plant incorporates a four stage crushing circuit that creates a 6mm product from the stockpiled ROM ore at a treatment rate of one million tonnes annually. The crusher feeds into a fine ore bin that in turn feeds into the concentrator that operates 24 hours a day.

The Mt Cattlin concentrator includes a reflux classifier, dual sized steam, heavy media separation (HMS) cyclones that go through two stages and mechanical attritioning of the sink product. The Spodumene concentrate is finally stacked on a pad near the plant area where it is drained and made ready for trucking to the port. The course waste that is produced during this process is collected in a surge bin to be transported to the waste dump, or used as backfill but it is possible that this may be sold in the future as a by-product.