Tertiary Minerals, Saudi Partners Sign JV To Develop Ghurayyah Tantalum Deposit
The UK’s Tertiary Minerals announced on 30 March it had signed a joint venture agreement with Saudi Arabia’s AH Algosaibi and Bros and Al-Nahla Trading and Contracting for the $7mn funding of feasibility studies for the development of the company’s tantalum deposit at Ghurayyah in the northwest of the kingdom. Assuming successful completion of the studies, a special purpose vehicle, funded and owned equally by Tertiary and the Consortium, will be incorporated to develop the Ghurayyah deposit. The work programs in progress include a 3,000ms drill program to collect a sample of approximately 80 tons for metallurgical processing testwork and to provide data for resource upgrading. The feasibility studies will also evaluate the potential value of the uranium and rare-earth minerals at Ghurayyah. Tantalum has the ability to store and release electronic charge and its main use is in the manufacture of capacitors, components that regulate the flow of electricity in electronic circuit boards. Raw material demand is growing at an estimated 5-8% annually after averaging over 8% in the 1990s.
Tertiary Minerals’ Ghurayyah deposit is located 55km from the Red Sea port of Dhuba. A detailed economic and technical scoping study suggests it has commercial potential as a future source of supply of tantalum, niobium and zircon raw materials. At an extraction rate of 1.5mn tons/year it would have a mine life of over 200 years. The extraction of significant contents of uranium and rare-earth-element has yet to be evaluated. In arranging financing for construction the project partners will seek to maximize the benefit of favorable debt funding available in Saudi Arabia, including that from the Saudi Industrial Development Fund and the Al-Yamamah Offset program, which could reduce Tertiary’s project equity requirement to as little as 6.5% of the $75-100mn total capital costs of the project estimated in the 2003 scoping study, the company said.
