Modern Mining November 2023

IRON ORE

Guinea, together with various significant JV part ners in Rio Tinto, Baowu Steel, and the Winning Consortium Simandou, to build the rail infrastruc ture with capacity of 100 mt, from Simandou in the East to the coast just south of Conakry, is an incred ibly fortuitous turn of events for our project and the development of the iron ore industry in Guinea generally. In particular, the Kalia project is located roughly halfway between Simandou and the coast, and the proposed rail route is planned to run within roughly 20 km of Kalia. Lastly, the Government of Guinea has always been very clear that the rail line must allow, and be designed for, multi users and third-party access. Our intention therefore is to nego tiate and secure access to this rail and, in doing so, unlock the true value represented by the size and quality of the Kalia deposit,” states Sergeant. The above, combined with the Chinese Government’s stated objective of reducing its reli ance on Australian Iron Ore, bodes extremely well for the much-anticipated development of the West African Iron Ore Industry, starting with Guinea, he adds. Short-to-medium term plans for Kalia The first step for the Stella Vista team, says Sergeant, is to update and refresh the BFS of 2013, to reflect any material changes to the underlying development assumptions and to reflect 2023/24 economic and pricing assumptions. “We are extremely confident that the refreshed BFS will confirm the robust nature of the financial returns on the project. Once we have published the refreshed BFS, our intention is to secure the neces sary project finance and commence construction, so that the project will be ready to commence produc tion in line with the completion and availability of rail access.”

some additional test work with a view to potentially exploiting the nickel opportunity as a first step in developing the Kalia asset. Kalia not only holds importance on the global iron ore stage, it also has the potential to have meaning ful positive impacts on the local community in Kalia, and the Guinean economy as a whole. “To provide context, the reported total resources at Kalia of over 5.7 bt of Fe are larger than the total resources reported at Simandou – another renown untapped high-grade iron ore deposit in Guinea. Not all deposit types are identical but, for sheer size, Kalia is, in fact, larger. Added to this, half of the Kalia licence area remains unexplored and it is estimated that the total resource could in fact double,” says Sergeant. Rail infrastructure development set to benefit Kalia Underpinned by robust economics, the well advanced world-class Kalia Iron Ore project, which will begin development against a historically high pricing environment, is set to gain from the Government of Guinea’s commitment to ensure the development of key rail infrastructure. “The recent commitment by the Government of

Image showing core sample from Kalia iron ore project.

14  MODERN MINING  November 2023