ASX listed rare earth element developer Greenland Minerals has continued ticking off the boxes for its massive Kvanefjeld project in southern Greenland, completing an optimised design of port facilities located near the town of Narsaq.
The work was undertaken by Arctic port design specialists PND Engineers and the China Communications Construction Co, or “C-CCC,” who worked closely with PND for the on-shore aspects of the proposed design.
The location of planned port facilities at the Tuna Peninsula near Narsaq has been enhanced to allow for the use of local construction materials and help lower the capital costs of the project.
Tuna Peninsula is situated at the base of the Narsaq valley in an area currently reserved as a municipal refuse facility.
PND has recommended the use of “open cell technology” for the bulk head/sea wall construction of the port, as it delivers the lowest cost and least construction risk.
C-CCC has provided an extensive design for the on-shore facilities, aimed at efficiency and flexibility within the future port operation.
The high level of design detail provided by C-CCC will be captured by contractor Nuna Logistics in finalising updated civil construction cost estimates for the proposed port, mine site and associated infrastructure facilities for Kvanefjeld.
In November last year, Tetra Tech redesigned aspects of the project to optimise the civil layout of the mine and plant, leading to a dramatic reduction in civil earth working costs, based on lowering the cut and fill material volumes by about 20% from the original plan.
Those costs will also be included in Nuna Logistics’ new estimation of the capital costs for the Kvanefjeld project.
The company is also close to finalising the optimised metallurgical flowsheet for the complex Kvanefjeld ore stream, with recent met test work leading to recoveries in excess of 80% and impressive concentrate grades above 22% rare earth oxide content.
This is well above the 14% rare earth oxide concentrate grade used in Greenland’s Kvanefjeld feasibility study and bodes well for the operation’s future economic performance.
The company recently said that the flotation circuit test work being completed by China’s BTMR Laboratories is likely to reduce both operating and capital expenditure requirements for the project.
Kvanefjeld has a JORC-compliant ore reserve of 108 million tonnes and contains significant uranium and zinc, along with the target rare earth mineralisation, which is enough to underpin a 37 year mine life for the project.
