Baobab Advancing Definitive Feasibility Study at Tete Project

Baobab Resources plc (LSE:BAO) provided an operations update, commenting that it is in the midst of completing a definitive feasibility study at its Tete pig iron and ferrovanadium project.

Activity highlights include:

Pilot scale smelting trials are underway at Mintek laboratories, South Africa, to investigate the behaviour of vanadium during smelting and subsequent oxidation treatment. Utilising a tilting furnace, c.45kg of pig iron product has successfully been produced. This is further evidence of the pig iron product, which can be produced from the Tete project. Below are the assayed results of pig iron achieved through the smelt test work.

Distribution of vanadium as well as deleterious elements (phosphorus, sulphur, copper, etc) has been tracked and will be incorporated into a working mass balance. Initial results presented above indicate a recovery of in excess of 75% vanadium to the hot metal, which is in accordance with the bench scale test work completed at CSIRO. It is important to note the low level of Cu and also to mention that the levels of Sulphur, Phosphorous, titanium and other deleterious elements will further reduce with the removal of Vanadium.

Four to six 200g samples of pig iron will then be subjected to vanadium recovery test work using various additives and levels of oxygenation to determine optimised conditions for two larger (5kg) tests to produce a sufficient amount of vanadium-rich slag for subsequent characterisation.

Both pig iron and slag samples will be used for marketing purposes.

Click here to read the full Baobab Resources plc (LSE:BAO) press release.