Cadence reports progress at Macarthur's Lake Giles

Cadence Minerals updated the market on the Lake Giles Iron Project on Monday, reporting that Macarthur Minerals had made further progress towards completion of the feasibility study.

The AIM-traded firm holds 1% of the issued equity interest in Macarthur, which is primarily focussed on iron ore, nickel, lithium and gold in Western Australia, and has a lithium project in Nevada.

It said that last week, lead consultant Stantec visited Moonshine and Moonshine North to undertake a formal site visit.

Stantec is advising Macarthur on the design of the process flow sheet for the magnetite process plant, as well as on the non-process infrastructure requirements for the planned high-grade magnetite project.

The detailed visit to the project site, located about 115 kilometres west of Menzies in Western Australia, took in “all relevant aspect” of the Lake Giles project that would be covered by the feasibility study at the proposed mine site, as well as other areas required for the development of key non-process infrastructure, including transport logistics infrastructure such as the proposed haul road and rail siding.

Cadence said the previously-announced geotechnical diamond core drill programme at Moonshine and Moonshine North was continuing to progress, with Macarthue and its consultants set to shortly undertake a separate site visit to the Port of Esperance to support the engineering design works for on-port infrastructure, that would also inform capital and operating cost outputs for the feasibility study.

“Last week's site visit is another important milestone in the development of the feasibility study for Macarthur,” said Macarthur Minerals chief executive officer Andrew Bruton.

“The foundational work required to underpin the delivery of the study will position Macarthur to advance with the execution phase of the project.

“However, engineering and design works must be married with reality, and in order to deliver truly successful outcomes for future mining operations, the teams responsible for assisting with delivery must experience and understand the landscape and environment within which the project will be developed.”

Bruton said properly examining and experiencing the terrain and conditions would help to underpin realistic capital and operating cost assumptions and outputs for the feasibility study.

“We are very encouraged by all the work completed to date.

“The study continues to progress within budget and on schedule, and we look forward to updating the market with the final results shortly.”

At 1455 BST, shares in Cadence Minerals were down 2.45% at 23.9p.