EDMONTON, ALBERTA, March 18, 2014 - Mindoro Resources Ltd. (TSXV: MIO; ASX: MDO; Frankfurt: WKN 906167) ("Mindoro", or "the Company") today advised that joint venture partner, TVI Pacific Inc. (TSX:TVI) (OTCQX:TVIPF) ("TVI") and its Philippine operating affiliate, TVI Resource Development (Phils.), Inc. ("TVIRD"), announced the first nickel production from the joint venture's pilot plant at Intertek Minerals Philippines in Manila, for the Agata North project, Agusan del Norte Province, northern Mindanao.
TVI Pacific Chairman, President, & CEO, Cliff M. James, said this is another significant milestone that has allowed us to successfully validate both production and cost efficiencies of our process, adding that the technical program is on track to provide metallurgical data required to design the proposed full-scale pilot plant.
Highlights of the Pilot Plant Results
A Nickel Hydroxide Product (NHP) filter cake was produced from TVIRD's pilot plant on February 7th, 2014 with a 52% to 54% Ni grade. NHP impurities such as Fe, Ca and Mg are low, thereby resulting in a versatile refined intermediate nickel product that may be directly processed to nickel oxide or nickel metal with no further refining required. Prior to NHP production, 8,000L of Fe and Ni rich Pregnant Leach Solution ("PLS") was purified via TVIRD's continuous counter-current ion exchange ("IX") pilot plant, successfully validating the viability of this IX purification process as well as establishing all design parameters for full-scale plant design. IX Ni recovery from PLS to eluate was 99.3%. |