That area has been covered back up for now as the light grey magnetite drops off in Fe percentage and will need to be concentrated to give it a huge Fe lift. Magnetite feed-stocks for DRI pellet plants are in short supply and great demand as most of the iron ore sold in the market is Hematite. Magnetite is high in Fe0 and is the desired material used to make DRI (Direct Reduced Iron) pellets.
The materials are ground down to mesh sizes in ball mills and then wet magnetically scrubbed 1 to 3 times depending on the total Fe needed; the materials can be up-lifted to the high 60’s, i.e., 66-69% Fe and brings a much greater value than the current market prices for Fines and Lump Raw Crude Iron Ores.. The structure of the Guadalupe iron minerals are disseminated Fe203/Fe304 down to 50 meters at the highest elevation and only 4 meters at the lower elevation where drill-hole 70 was placed.
It’s not practical to give out guess-timations of the magnetite deposit; however, it is safe to say that it’s a billion dollar plus reserve, only further wide area and deeper drilling will start to improve the picture. The two new drill-holes are set 105 and 130 meters parallel to 275dg NW at 05dg-NE and should reveal the same materials as DH 69,70 and 71. As an added value the waste materials from this procedure will leave Al203 and Si203, the alumina can further be processed to the higher values and sales for approximately $300.00 per metric ton.
Originally Guadalupe was thought to be a nice little mine that could produce maybe a 100 million dollars over a few years, but now that is blown out the window, this puppy is the largest iron mineral deposit known in Baja and maybe even one of the biggest in Mexico., yet to be proven.
All this sounds nice, but it will take a very large investment to turn it into a major play, two large steel mills and a couple pellet plant operators are currently in talks with management about investing in the project, and we will see how all this turns out, Bao Steel is coming back tomorrow and they have been very persistent in wanting in… but, as you might guess, the Chinese are never easy to deal with.. LOL