Woulfe Mining Corp WFEMF

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Woulfe Mining Metallurgical Recovery 15% Above Historical

 

28 Mar 2012 08:30 ET

Marketwire Canada

Woulfe Mining Corp. ("Woulfe" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:WOF)(OTCQX:WFEMF)(FRANKFURT:OZ4) is pleased to announce that metallurgical testwork has been completed for feasibility.

Brian Wesson (FAusIMM) CEO/President of Woulfe commented "It was not an easy decision for management to delay the feasibility study to seek out the best technology available as a base of metallurgical test work. What made this even more difficult for us is that our signed strategic agreements require the feasibility study for the completion of due diligence. This time and effort was well spent as we have now shown that recoveries of 85% can be achieved, some 15% higher than historical. This positively impacts the return on investment as higher concentrate grade reduces both capital and process costs. Truly a great achievement so now the feasibility is moving rapidly to completion, and will be released in mid-April 2012."

Metallurgical Testwork 85% recovery

Metallurgical testwork on the Sangdong scheelite ore has proved a highlight of finalising the inputs to the Sangdong Project Feasibility Study. Having established the optimum grind size, an all flotation circuit was trialled. The success of this and its lower capital cost compared with the more conventional gravity plus flotation circuit has resulted in its adoption as the project moves through feasibility to production.

The process first floats the molybdenum, bismuth and other sulphides into a sulphide concentrate using conventional sulphide flotation. The molybdenum and bismuth concentrate can either be sold or further processed to highly value added products. Having removed the sulphides, the scheelite is then initially floated giving it an upgrade ratio of up to 20 times at very high scheelite recovery. This concentrate is then thickened and heated as feed to a flotation circuit incorporating modifications to the well-known Petrov process. The small quantity of thickened and heated concentrate is floated using conventional, but intense flotation conditions. This has resulted in the production of concentrate grades of more than 70% WO3 at recoveries above 85%. The feasibility study has been modified to include these exciting results. New tonnage samples are now being mined from the advanced re-opening of the Sangdong mine to provide adequate feed to verify the feasibility study results by pilot plant testing.

Concentrates from the pilot plant will be used to define the design criteria for the planned ammonium paratungstate plant (APT plant) that under the IMC agreements will be funded by our off-take partner as part of the off-take agreement announced earlier this month.