Hawsons Iron has determined and verified the process flow sheet for its namesake iron ore project after engaging esteemed companies ALS and Bureau Veritas to develop a virtual pilot plant.
This enabled Hawsons to save on the capital costs and necessary mine site approvals of building a physical pilot plant on-site.
Laboratory test works were conducted on ore samples to verify key equipment sizing, mass balance and final product specifications.
The completion of the process flow sheet is necessary in considering different equipment technologies, the availability of all required pilot plant equipment, and bottlenecks in test processing.
“The selected process will enable the company to produce a high-grade concentrate inclusive of a flotation circuit; however, our technical analysis confirms that we would still be able to produce a premium-grade product without this additional stage of processing,” Hawsons Iron managing director Bryan Granzien said.
“Consequently, the company will evaluate the beneficial economic value of including the flotation stage against the pricing differentials in the final concentrate specifications we could take to market.”
Preliminary results from the test work confirmed that HPGR (high-pressure grinding rolls) technology is suitable for processing Hawsons’ iron ore product, while dry cobbing provided limited benefit and was therefore not incorporated.
Granzien said the process to produce Hawsons’ 70 per cent iron (Fe) Supergrade product had been selected and validated, with all major equipment sized.
“Importantly, all this work confirms our ability to produce the necessary high-grade concentrate required to support ‘green steel’ production,” he said.
Hawsons announced in October it was conducting a strategic review to examine options to scale up production in stages, including the potential to rely on existing transport infrastructure to reduce capital costs.
This comes after the company decided to slow activity on its bankable feasibility study (BFS) amid deteriorating global economic conditions.