Public reporting of industrial minerals resources according to JORC 2012

• Autores: Andrew Scogings
• Localización: Industrial Minerals, ISSN 0019-8544, Nº. 560, 2014 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Mayo)
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Recent interest in industrial minerals Industrial minerals, such as graphite and spodumene, have recently become the focus of much attention for listed exploration and mining companies, partly due to developments in battery technologies related to the emerging electric vehicle market. Consequently, the race has been on to report larger tonnage exploration targets and resources, with certain projects being described, for example, as the "biggest" or "second biggest" in the world; perhaps hundreds of millions of tonnes that contain a certain percentage of a particular mineral. However, being the biggest doesn't necessarily mean the best. The JORC author's intention is to highlight the need to report resources by market-related specification.

    From the above examples it is obvious that when publicly reporting an industrial mineral resource, it is insufficient to simply report a tonnage and the contained percentage of the mineral. Not only is this contrary to JORC 2012 requirements but it could be misleading to investors. Let us take the case of a hypothetical graphite resource reported as 200m tonnes at 10% graphite. Essentially, all this tells us is that the resource contains 10% in-situ flake graphite, but it tells us nothing about, i) the size range of graphite flakes, ii) the likely purity of extracted graphite flakes, iii) impurities such as sulphides that may impact on mineral extraction, nor, iv) possible markets.

    For minerals that are defined by a specification, the mineral resource or ore reserve estimation must be reported in terms of the mineral, or minerals, on which the project is to be based, and must include the specification of those minerals. When reporting information and estimates for industrial minerals, the key principles and purpose of the JORC Code apply and should be borne in mind. Assays may not always be relevant, and other quality criteria may be more applicable. If criteria such as deleterious minerals or physical properties are of more relevance than the composition of the bulk mineral itself, then they should be reported accordingly.