Oct 12 2012
Rogue Iron Ore Corp. is pleased to announce results from the first phase of metallurgical testing at its Radio Hill Iron Ore Project, located 80 km southwest of Timmins, Ontario. The Company has received results from the first of six drill core composites of from Radio Hill.
Laboratory, or "bench scale", metallurgical test work is focused on characterizing the metallurgical response of the deposit. The laboratory test work consisted of fine grinding, low intensity magnetic separation, desliming and flotation, to further reduce silica in the concentrate. This work was conducted at SGS Minerals Services in Lakefield, Ontario.
The test results are very encouraging with a predicted concentrate weight recovery of 37.5% at an expected iron grade of 67.3% and a 5.0% concentrate silica grade. Further processing of the same composite reduced silica to 2.0% and increased the concentrate grade to over 70% with a weight recovery of 29.9%.
Analyses of the flotation concentrate from the initial testing show its chemistry is well suited as feed for pelletizing, sintering and other iron making technologies. Testing is now in progress on the next samples in the characterization program sequence.
The procedure established on the first composite will be used on the remaining composites and the results of this metallurgical test work will provide the basis for quantitative characterization of the metallurgy for a major portion of the Radio Hill deposit. This advanced metallurgical test work is part of fast tracking the Radio Hill development and is a critical step in the development of a meaningful resource estimate.
The "historical" feasibility study (non-NI 43-101 compliant), which was completed in 1965, indicated that a fine grind was needed to liberate the magnetite from the iron ore at Radio Hill. Current testing is consistent with this historical work. The Company has commenced two more phases of testing to help characterize additional zones to ensure that the future resource estimate will pertain to a marketable iron ore product. The standard procedure for magnetite iron deposits is to initially outline a resource using head iron assays for total iron. The Radio Hill deposit also contains iron occurring as silicates and carbonates, so it is considered 'best practice' to determine recoverable iron first before conducting a resource estimate.
"Positive metallurgical test results are a major milestone for the Radio Hill project and we are very encouraged with what we've seen so far. With high capital costs becoming synonymous with iron ore development projects worldwide, we remain confident infrastructure-endowed projects such as Radio Hill will become increasingly more attractive as these more remote projects are delayed or postponed," stated Freeman Smith, President and CEO.
"This is an exciting time for Rogue as we are not only seeing favourable results from our iron project, but we have found a way to pull value out of other assets in the Company. In addition to our nickel and iron assets, we are in the process of spinning out a gold company named Rapier Gold Inc. from our Timmins West asset. Rapier has completed an over-subscribed first round, preliminary seed financing of $500,000, and we are moving ahead with spinning out Rapier as a stand-alone, publicly traded gold exploration company. Through this transaction, it is anticipated that in November approximately 11 million shares of Rapier will be distributed to Rogue shareholders. We also continue to review scenarios for our nickel asset and are confident we will eventually unlock the value of this underappreciated asset."
QUALITY CONTROL AND ASSURANCE
All drill core samples have been split and shipped by the company to SGS Lakefield, where the samples were prepared and analyzed by fusion with lithium tetraborate-XRF for SiO2, Al2O3, CaO, Fe2O3, K2O, MgO, TiO2, P, Mn and Cr2O3, and retained moisture (LOI) by multi-temperature. Sulphur and sulphide analyses were done separately. A magnetite concentrate for the composite is produced using a Davis Tube concentrator (DT) giving a weight recovery percentage (DTWR). The concentrate is then analyzed by XRF. The samples for both metallurgic testing were analyzed at SGS labs in Lakefield, Ontario. SGS is an internationally recognized leader in iron ore analysis.
Kevin Montgomery, P.Geo., is the qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed the technical contents of this press release.