US iron ore – global expertise
Richmond Mining is focused on the development of the Company’s 100% owned Buena Vista magnetite project. Located in the mining friendly state of Nevada in the United States the project offers investors a low risk entry into an emerging steel mill feedstock.
The United States provides mining companies with well situated and established infrastructure with road, rail and port facilities all in place. For Buena Vista, this established infrastructure reduces the development costs by well in excess of a billion dollars and significantly shortens the time taken to get the project into production.
Richmond has already completed the definitive feasibility study and is now engaged in discussions with banks and other potential providers of finance for the development of Buena Vista. In conjunction with an active programme to secure the remaining mining and environmental permits Richmond anticipates that production will commence within 12-15 months of the securing of final finance. At this stage the first half of calendar 2013 is the targeted date for the commencement of production.
Inclusive to the many advantages inherent in BuenaVista are the low capital cost, the very low risk political environment, the cash costs which are equivalent to or better than the majority of emerging magnetite producers and the relatively short time to production. The project also represents a much lower operational risk than most emerging producers because of the proposed scale of production.
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Geology
The general geology of the Buena Vista area consists of basaltic volcanic rocks of Jurassic age that are intruded by a partially scapolitised gabbroic complex. Tertiary deposits are faulted against the Jurassic rocks in the eastern part of the area.
Away from the hills of volcanic rock, much of the older geology is obscured by surficial deposits.
The principal magnetite deposits in the Mineral Basin District occur in a large body of rock made up of the assemblage scapolite-brown hornblende-clinopyroxene-calcite-magnetite, which can contain up to 90% scapolite. The contact of the scapolite rock with the overlying volcanic rock is poorly exposed and might indicate that the scapolite rock intrudes the volcanic rocks.
Leucocratic dykes cut the scapolitic gabbro in the vicinity of the Buena Vista workings. The majority of these dykes trend northwest are steeply dipping and commonly occur in swarms. They tend to be narrow, only 1 metre or so in width, but can often be traced for distances of up to 300 metres.
The proposed mining area around the West ore body occurs in the contact zone between the intrusive diorite-gabbro and overlying basalt-andesite. The intrusive rocks and adjacent meta-volcanics have been highly scapolitised and, in the vicinity of the magnetite rich zones, chloritised. Post-mineralisation dykes cut both the diorite-gabbro and the meta-volcanic rocks.