Oct 16 2014
I-Minerals Inc. ("the Company" or "I-Minerals") announces that further to its press release of June 26, 2014 wherein it announced it had excavated bulk samples totaling approximately 35 tons from 10 sample sites on the Kelly's Hump, Kelly's Hump South, and Middle Ridge portions of the Bovill Kaolin deposit, the first phase of metallurgical work is now complete.
The Kelly's Hump bulk sample, the largest of the three bulk samples, which was excavated from seven sample sites, has now been processed via wet blunging and screen separation of the halloysite-kaolinite clay fraction from the quartz-K-spar sand fraction at Ginn Mineral Technology ("Ginn") in Sandersville, Georgia. Wet screw classification was also successfully tested for incorporation into the process schematic. Second stage processing on the Kelly's Hump material is nearly complete at Ginn wherein the clay fraction is separated into kaolinite and halloysite using hydrocylone, centrifuge, and differential flotation techniques to yield both standard and high purity halloysite products.
The K-spar and quartz bearing sand fraction has been re-packaged for shipment to North Carolina State University's Minerals Research Laboratory ("MRL") for flotation separation of the K-spar and quartz. The pilot plant process will include tertiary grinding followed by standard wet flotation to separate the K-spar and quartz, dewatered, and then passed through a dry rare earth magnetic separator to remove residual iron minerals. Previous work at MRL has produced K-spar products with purities greater than 13% K2O. The quartz fraction will be processed using up to three stage flotation, where quartz purities with less than 200 PPM of total impurities have been produced without the use of any acid leaching techniques. At this point the pilot plant at MRL is scheduled to start processing the K-spar and quartz bearing sand fraction in the second half of October.
The sample sites were reviewed and confirmed by SRK based on their statistical modeling and will result in the most representative bulk samples of the Bovill Kaolin deposits to date. In particular for the purposes of the Feasibility Study this work is intended to confirm the high purity k-spar and quartz results generated in initial sampling of selective locations are in fact representative of the entire resource including areas of kaolin enrichment/halloysite depletion.
I-Minerals anticipates producing about 10.5 tons of quartz, 4.5 tons of K-spar, 3.0 tons of halloysite and 3.25 tons of Kaolin through the respective pilot plants. Beyond confirming the flow sheet and equipment required, the bulk sample will be indicative of the recoverable amounts of minerals contained in the Kelly's Hump area and provide representative product samples to prospective customers for testing as a means of firming up customer interest to the required feasibility levels.
"With a proven reserve defined as part of our June 2014 prefeasibility study we have drilled off the geological risk associated with our Bovill Kaolin deposits on the Helmer Bovill project," stated Thomas Conway, President and CEO of I-Minerals Inc. "Now as we push the project through feasibility, we expect the processing of this bulk sample will not only confirm the quality of our high purity quartz, k-spar and halloysite products sourced from the new Kelly's Hump area, but of equal importance, provide much needed samples for prospective customers to help firm up their interest therein leaving detailed engineering as the key outstanding item in the feasibility study process."
A. Lamar Long, CPG, is a qualified person ("QP") for I-Minerals Inc. and has reviewed and approved the contents of this release.
Source: http://www.imineralsinc.com/s/Home.asp