Angus, Cabot explore for tantalum in Greenland

In January 2000, shortly after its formation, Angus & Ross obtained a 414-sq.-km exploration licence covering a tantalum-and-niobium-bearing deposit within the Motzfeldt Centre of the Igaliko nepheline-syenite complex.

The centre comprises a series of high-level, alkaline-syenite intrusions that have been subjected to extreme pegmatitic and hydrothermal alteration, in a manner similar to the Palabora and Rossing complexes in South Africa and Namibia, respectively.

Motzfeldt’s tantalum and niobium mineralization occurs as pyrochlore within a 250-metre-wide zone about 300 metres from the syenite intrusions’ outer margins.

The deposit is barren of vegetation and exposed at surface on a relatively flat mountain top, as well as along a 1,000-metre-high cliff face accessible using repelling techniques. (Angus has thus hired several geologists with mountaineering expertise.)

The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), which discovered and sampled the deposit in 1985, says there is potential to develop a resource of some 50 million tonnes grading 0.03-0.1% tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) and 130 million tonnes of 0.4-1% niobium pentoxide.

“We think it’s one of the biggest tantalum occurrences in the world,” says Robert Young, Angus & Ross’s managing director. He adds that, while GEUS and Angus have so far carried out only surface sampling, the deposit’s stark surface exposure in two dimensions allows a higher degree of confidence in those numbers than would otherwise be possible.

Part of Angus’s work last summer included sending samples to consultants Lakefield Research in Canada for preliminary metallurgical testing. The tests were, in part, designed to investigate the possibility of mineral-dressing problems, as suggested by the pyrochlore’s grain size.

Lakefield concluded that the Motzfeldt pyrochlore is amenable to recovery by flotation, and the next step is to find the best way to extract the tantalum and niobium from the pyrochlore.

This June and July, when the snow cover is gone, Angus geologists plan to return to the property to carry out further mapping and sampling in preparation for the first-ever drilling of the deposit, slated to begin in August.

Angus’s initial activity at Motzfeldt has quickly grabbed the attention of one of the world’s largest consumers of tantalum, Boston-based specialty-chemicals company Cabot Corp. (CBT-N), which stepped in to fund Angus’s exploration work for the next two years.

In January 2001, Cabot exercised an option for 1 million Angus shares at 10 pence (about US14.4) apiece and subscribed for another 4 million shares at 20 pence each.

Furthermore, under a pending agreement, Cabot will be granted an option to subscribe for 5 million more shares at 20 pence each and will seat a director — likely to be tantalum-veteran Richard Burt from Cabot Mineral Developments — on Angus’s board.

Cabot will also have the option to enter into an offtake agreement for up to 50% of any tantalum that Angus produces from its licences in Greenland or Ireland, where the junior has ground near the Blackstairs Mountains in counties Carlow and Wexford, 90 km south of Dublin.

Following the issue of the additional shares, Cabot will hold a 20.8% interest in Angus’s 24 million outstanding shares, which trade over-the-counter on Britain’s OFEX system, created and operated by brokerage house JP Jenkins and its affiliates Newstrack and Ofexmedia.

“We’re all tin miners, actually,” says Young of the group behind Angus & Ross, which was named after two Scottish lords in Shakespeare’s MacBeth. “We’re just a new company started up in London and we’re interested in having a go.”

Apart from Young, Angus’s management includes Chairman Robin Andrews, as well as non-executive directors Julian Crook, Roger Turner and Michael Martineau, who founded and headed up SAMAX Gold before it was bought by Ashanti Goldfields.

One of the geologists who helped with GEUS’s surveys, Ashlyn Armour-Brown, now serves as a consultant to Angus and is leading Angus’s exploration program.

New Millennium

Angus is not alone in southern Greenland: Australian junior New Millennium Resources has acquired licences around the Motzfeldt Centre and is planning to spend several million dollars exploring for tantalum, niobium and rare-earth elements associated with carbonatite complexes.

Tantalum is a rare strategic metal with a high melting point, corrosive resistance, good alloying and unique electronic properties. Global demand has been steadily increasing since the mid-1990s, as the metal is used in electronic capacitors within a variety of gizmos, from cellphones to video games.

Lately, tantalum pentoxide has had a mid-market price of US$185 per lb. after selling for US$50-60 per lb. just a couple of years ago. Apart from the growing demand, prices are also being buoyed by a reduced availability of tantalum derived from old tin slags.

The world’s biggest tantalum producer remains Australia’s Sons of Gwalia, which now produces half of all primary tantalum concentrate.

In June 2000, Gwalia entered into new tantalum sales contracts with its two major customers, Cabot and H.C. Starck (part of Germany’s Bayer Group), which together account for 80% of world tantalum demand.

In the last six months 2000, tantalum sales from Gwalia’s Greenbushes and Wodgina mines in Australia totalled 601,013 lbs. Ta2O5, up from 455,004 lbs. in the corresponding period in 1999.

Gwalia’s production is expected to soar to 1 million lbs. in the first six months of 2001, and it will be sold at higher prices. As a result, the company says it expects “substantially increased” earnings in the second half of its current fiscal year.

By 2003, Gwalia expects to be selling 2.3 million lbs. Ta2O5 per year, in contrast with 1995’s figure of about 500,000 lbs. Increased production from Greenbushes will come from a A$35-million expansion of an existing processing facility, from 1.6 million tonnes to more than 2.8 million tonnes per year.

At Wodgina, a new A$35-million processing facility was commissioned in 1999 and, within a year or two, production capacity will more than double to 1 million lbs. Ta2O5 per year.

At June 30, 2000, Gwalia’s Advanced Minerals Division had reserves of 92.5 million tonnes grading 0.023% Ta2O5 (47 million in situ pounds) at Greenbushes and 26.4 million tonnes of 0.0414% Ta2O5 (24 million in situ pounds) at Wodgina. A further 115.6 million tonnes of 0.0225% Ta2O5 lay in the resource category at both mines.

North America has one small — but high-grade — tantalum-cesium mine: Cabot’s middle-aged Tanco mine at Bernic Lake in Manitoba, where preproduction reserves included 2.1 million tonnes grading 0.216% tantalum pentoxide.

Drawing inspiration from Tanco, a trio of Canadian juniors — Avalon Ventures (AVL-V), Houston Lake Mining (HLM-V) and Champion Bear Resources (CBA-V) — are exploring several promising rare-metals prospects in southeastern Manitoba and northwestern Ontario.

JOHN CUMMING With demand for tantalum continuing to rise, British-based junior Angus & Ross is gearing up for a second summer of exploration at a property 20 km east of Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland.