VRX Silica (ASX: VRX) has received an independent process design, engineering and cost estimate for a processing plant for its Arrowsmith and Muchea silica sands projects. It is expected to cost about $18 million per processing plant, while the total capex is estimated at $25 million per plant. A BFS for Arrowsmith and Muchea is expected in September.
VRX Silica (ASX: VRX) has received an independent process design, engineering and cost estimate for a processing plant for its Arrowsmith Silica Sand Projects, located 270km north of Perth, and its Muchea Silica Sand Project, located 50km north of Perth.
Highlights:
· Process circuit design and engineering completed
· Plant designed for optimum utilisation
· Processing plant cost estimated at $18m per plant
· Total capex (including plant feeder and water supply per plant) estimated at $25m per plant
· BFS for Arrowsmith and Muchea Projects expected in September 2019 Quarter
The independent processing testwork, process circuit design and engineering has been undertaken by CDE Global, a global leader in the construction of sand mining wet processing plants.
Plant Design and Costs
The plant design incorporates features to ensure high utilisation and performance with duplicated critical pumps and variable speed drives on all pumps. Three iterations of testwork have been carried out on the Arrowsmith and Muchea projects.
Significantly, the attritioning cycle has been demonstrated to be particularly effective in removing impurities from the quartz grains. Attritioning is an agitated high density slurry which allows for a high energy interaction of grains rubbing on grains which liberates attached fine particles and reduces particle size by breakage on corners and grain boundaries.
The process is repeated twice in VRX’s process circuit design. Testwork completed by VRX has confirmed that the plant design for the production of a high purity silica sand product suitable for the glass-making industry is the same for each of VRX’s three projects (Arrowsmith North and Arrowsmith Central and Muchea).
