Guyana grants First Bauxite mining licence extension

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Toronto-headquartered First Bauxite has been given at least a two-year extension to the construction starting date for its Bonasika ceramic proppant project, in Guyana.

The TSX-V-listed company reported on Tuesday that the Guyana government had extended the construction commencement date under the mining licence from January 31, 2016 to January 31, 2018. A further extension to January 31, 2019, might be granted, should a review of the performance and financial standing of the company indicate an extension had merit.

As part of the discussions on the mining licence extension, First Bauxite had agreed to allocate some of the proceeds from a recently competed $15-million private placement to initial design, permitting and infrastructure construction activities in Guyana during 2016. It was expected activities would focus on preliminary detailed design and engineering, the construction of wharves on either side of the Demerara river and on initial mine development.

The company also said that it would use a portion of the proceeds from the private placement to undertake a bulk sample pit programme to confirm mining and processing assumptions in the Bonasika project feasibility study and to produce commercial volumes of ceramic proppants in a full-scale ceramic proppant production facility.

Following announcement of the feasibility study results on June 18, 2015 and filing of the NI 43-101 technical report on August 4, further independent testwork had been conducted by recognised oil and gas industry proppant testing laboratories on upscale samples of First Bauxite's ceramic proppants. This testwork had confirmed the favourable results reported in the feasibility study.