mining news
11
06.13
The Board of Xtract, listed on London’s AIM, has
announced the appointment of Jan Nelson as Chief
Executive Officer of the company with immediate
effect.
Nelson brings to Xtract over 15 years’ experience
in the mining industry. Most recently, he was CEO of
Pan African Resources, where he was responsible
for transforming the company from an exploration
vehicle with limited cash resources to a 200 000 oz
per annum, low cost, high grade gold producer.
Prior to this, he held positions in mine management
and operations with Harmony Gold and Gold Fields.
Following Nelson’s appointment, the board in-
tends to develop a new strategy for the company,
focused on precious and base metals, which will be
presented to shareholders in the coming months.
Comments Colin Bird, Chairman of Xtract: “I am
delighted to welcome Jan as Chief Executive Of-
ficer of the company with confidence that he will
play a pivotal role in completing the reorganisation
of Xtract and identify new assets to restore and
enhance shareholder value, as he has before. Jan
made a very positive contribution to the develop-
ment of Pan African Resources and I am confident
that his appointment will prove successful.”
Xtract Energy was established in 2004 (as Res-
mex plc) and its shares were admitted to trading
on AIM at the end of March 2005. The company
identifies and invests in a portfolio of early stage
resource assets and business interests with sig-
nificant growth potential. Its current principal as-
sets are its holdings in Elko Energy Inc, Zhibek Re-
sources Ltd and its joint ventured oil shale deposits
in Queensland, Australia.
TSX-listed Energizer Resources Inc has re-
tained the services of SGS Canada in Lake-
field, Ontario to optimise its metallurgical
process for the Molo graphite deposit in
Madagascar.
Energizer is confident that flake size dis-
tribution and graphite purity levels can be
further optimised by SGS due to the lab’s
experience in graphite metallurgical manage-
ment. The test work to be conducted by SGS
will be completed in three phases, with the
results being integrated into the company’s
full feasibility study as well as the company’s
Preliminary Economic Analysis (PEA) study.
It is anticipated that the results of the SGS
study will positively impact the Molo PEA
study which reported an NPV of US$421 mil-
lion (10 % discount rate), an IRR of 48 %, and
a payback of 3,0 years.
SGS will begin work by conducting a vari-
ability analysis on the two zones of miner-
alisation (with head grades of 10,5 % C and
6,5 % C respectively) found within the Molo
deposit. A flowsheet will then be developed
to maximise the recovery of graphite into a
flotation concentrate grading at least 95 % C,
while also looking to maximise the preserva-
tion of large flakes.
Phase 2 of the SGS programme will involve
the purification of graphite flotation concen-
trate grading at least 95 % C from Phase 1 of
the test programme to a concentrate grade
>99,5 % C. Initial test work conducted by
Mintek of Johannesburg demonstrated that
graphite concentrates were easily upgraded
to purities between 98 % and 98,6 % C and
SGS believes purities of >99,5 % C should be
easily obtainable.
Following the optimisation of the flotation
concentrate flowsheet, SGS will design and
SGS to build pilot plant for graphite project
construct a pilot plant to process roughly 200
tonnes of Molo graphite ore. The pilot plant
is anticipated to begin processing in August,
and will result in the production of 6-10 tonnes
of graphite concentrate which the company
will use to advance off-take discussions.
The Molo deposit is located in the Green
Giant Graphite project area and is part of a
joint venture (JV) property with Malagasy Min-
erals Limited. Energizer has a 75 % ownership
interest and is the operator of the project.
J
an Nelson joins Extract as CEO
