Tapuli
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Location: Norrbotten Province, Northern Sweden Minerals: Iron Ownership: 100% ownership of an exploitation concession and exploration permits Status: Late Stage Exploration/Early Stage Development -- Moving Toward Production |
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Overview
Tapuli is an advanced project with a defined NI43-101 magnetite resource, located 5km from the Sahavaara magnetite deposit in Norrbotten District, northern Sweden. The resource, modeled using a cut off of 15.0% Fe (refer to press release dated December 11, 2008) is:
- Total Measured resources are 59.33 million tonnes with an average grade of 27.82 % Fe.
- Total Indicated resources are 34.85 million tonnes with an average grade of 24.08 % Fe.
- Total Inferred resources are 9.74 million tonnes with an average grade of 23.71 % Fe.
GeoVista, who completed Northland's resource calculation, noted in their summary that the project has the potential for commercial exploitation given:
- the scale of the deposit, which could be combined with other major magnetite resources like Sahavaara and Pellivuoma,
- the potential to realize major cost savings on initial project capital requirements, if a development decision is made, by rehabilitating and feeding into existing infrastructure in neighboring Finland, and
- a potential low waste-to-ore mining ratio.
Property History
Tapuli was drilled by the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU) between 1965 and 1969. Twenty-six holes were drilled on the Tapuli occurrence, totaling 6,280 meters; of these, the majority have density determinations. The SGU determined a rough resource estimate (non NI 43-101 compliant) of 60 Mt of magnetite ore grading 30% Fe. Geophysical work (magnetic and gravity) was completed by the SGU in 1971 and concluded that the central core of high grade ore may be continuous to a depth in excess of 2,000 meters. Little further work was done until Northland acquired the project in 2004.
Northland has systematically drilled the magnetite body, and when appropriate has used large diameter core, which has provided sufficient material for initial metallurgical test work. Our geologists have also re-logged and re-sampled the historic core stored in the SGU core archive.
Northland's 2007 drilling program added 37 holes for a total of 5,697 meters. All the drill holes were integrated into the current database, which contained a total of 5,603 iron analyses. Two historic drill holes were twinned to verify lithological and assay reliability with good correlation.
Because the Tapuli-area deposits had been explored previously, Northland was able to move directly to in-fill and deeper hole drilling.
Geology and Mineralization
The Tapuli magnetite body is hosted by structurally deformed rocks within the Pajala Shear Zone (PSZ), a major regional feature striking across the border into Finland, where our Rautuvaara and Hannukainen projects are located.
 Cross Section Click to Enlarge |
The deposit occurs as a semi-continuous mineralized zone beneath an average of 11m of till. The mineralization has been separated into 7 mineralized lenses, Tapuli South, Tapuli Central Upper and Lower, Tapuli North Upper and Lower and Palotieva Upper and Lower respectively. The dip of the mineralized bodies range from 45 to 60 degrees towards the WNW and NW. Magnetite occurs as relatively continuous lenses which have been delineated at surface along strike for over 2,000 meters with true widths within the Central lens of over 200 meters.
The near-surface magnetite body can be traced for 2.2 km along strike, and is located close to surface below a few meters of glacial till. The magnetite body is fairly well separated from the sulfide bearing zones. Drilling has determined the magnetite skarn to be more than 85m in true thickness and is open down hole to the south. Due to the thickness of the ore body and proximity to the surface, Northland believes this deposit can be mined with a very low stripping ratio (<1:1).
Metallurgical Test Work
A representative bulk sample of 25 tonnes of drill core from Tapuli was collected in the 1st quarter 2009 and was processed in a pilot plant at GTK in Finland, in order to:
- prove the bench-scale developed process flow-sheet on a larger scale,
- provide a sample of high quality concentrate for evaluation by prospective customers and further metallurgical test work,
- gain process data for commercial plant design, and
- produce tailing fractions for an environmental permit application.
The table below provides a detailed analysis of the concentrate generated from the pilot-scale testwork and demonstrates that the Tapuli project can provide a high-quality iron ore concentrate suitable as feed to pellet plants supplying both the Blast Furnace (BF) or Direct Reduced (DR) iron markets (refer to press release dated April 15, 2009).
Table 1: Average concentrate composition for Tapuli magnetite concentrate. All elements reported as wt%.
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Ownership
Northland owns the exploitation concession and exploration permits 100%, free of any royalties or back-in rights.
