Altech Chemicals appoints Castle as its Mining and Processing Partner

Altech Chemicals Limited announces that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with mining services company, Castle Equipment Pty Ltd (Castle), appointing it as mining contractor and processing plant operator for the Company's aluminous clay (kaolin) deposit at Meckering, Western Australia. Castle is an experienced mining industry services provider, offering a range of mining, crushing and equipment hire services to businesses operating in the Western Australian mining industry.

At its Meckering deposit, Altech is planning to campaign mine approximately 145,000 tonnes of aluminous clay (kaolin) at 3 to 4 year intervals, to provide feedstock for its proposed 4,000tpa high purity alumina (HPA) processing plant to be located in Malaysia, and which is the subject of a bankable feasibility study that is scheduled for completion in Q-3 2015.

The Company anticipates that each mining campaign will take two months to complete, with beneficiation of the resultant aluminous clay to be conducted on a continuous basis, 5 days per week, on a single 12-hour day shift, with weekends for scheduled maintenance. Beneficiation will consist of simple wet processing to remove oversize silica, followed by drying to reduce moisture content for shipment. The upgraded kaolin will be packed into 1-2 tonne "bulka bags" for containerised shipment to Malaysia, via the port of Fremantle, Western Australia. The Meckering plant has been designed to produce approximately 18,565 tonnes of beneficiated kaolin per annum at full capacity. Refer Figure 1, in link below for the proposed Meckering site lay out.

In addition to mining services and beneficiation plant operations and maintenance, Castle will provide the Company with other services normally associated with mining and processing operations, these are expected to include road construction and maintenance, general site administration, and the provision of miscellaneous plant and equipment hire, as required.

Commenting on the signing of the MOU with Castle, Altech's managing director Iggy Tan explained, "We are gradually ticking all the boxes and getting all the players in place to not only complete the bankable feasibility study on time, but to ensure that the Company is ready (subject to finance) to proceed with project development as quickly we can. We have selected Castle due to its overall mining services experience, flexibility and skills in running these type of operations".