RE: Energy Costs Rule of thumb for the meta-taconites of Labrador West:
60 to 80 MW per 8 million tonne concentrate production.
Seem to remember and stand to be corrected on this:
NML's 2006 PFS said 300 MW for 22 mtpa concentrates.
If this is roughly right then making concentrate from meta - taconite (I think CHM's stuff is more like this) comes in at 8.7 MW per million tonnes.
For the taconites this is 13.6 MW per million tonnes of concentrate - less than double the meta-taconites.
Dangerous to do such a simplistic comparison though - marketing for instance is a big part of this - CHM's product would probably be more easily marketable in the flavor of the day market; that is the Chinese market.
Don't know if the NML PFS 300 MW includes pelletizing (or just concentrating)!
Pellets will fetch more than con but currently the premium probably doesn't pay the extra cost of pelletizing. A bit of a quandry I suppose because much of the taconites are ground so fine that pelletizing is the only option.
They (NML) will have the advantage of higher iron units per tonne of con though and extremely low silica content. The taconites also cause an exothermic reaction at the pelletizing stage - comparably less energy to pelletize than the meta-taconite or hemetitic concentrates.
Just musing and open to correction;
BG