Iron Mountain Mining acquires 50% stake in bauxite project in the Solomon Islands

According to a Mining Weekly report, Australian miner Iron Mountain Mining has acquired a 50% interest in Au Capital Mining that is engaged in bauxite exploration in New South Wales and Western Australia.  Au Capital Mining owns two prospecting bauxite mining licences in the Solomon Islands and thereby, Junior Iron Mountain Mining acquired an option on the said bauxite mining projects.

Iron Mountain confirmed on Tuesday that it had paid a non-refundable option fee of     A$100 000 for acquiring a long option period. This will also allow them to complete extensive due diligence on Au Capital Mining and the projects.



In exchange of acquiring 50% stake in Au Capital Mining, Iron Mountain issued 20-million of its own shares to Au Capital Mining’s shareholders on completion of the acquisition. 20-million more shares would be issued once the first commercial shipment of bauxite from the projects is complete or within 12 months of the completion of the acquisition.

One of the assets of Au Capital Mining is the Nendo bauxite project in Temotu Province.

In the month of July, Iron Mountain Mining Limited announced the discovery of “extensive large-scale” deposits of bauxite in the Solomon Islands during its exploration at the Nendo Bauxite Project.

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As the acquisition is complete now, Iron Mountain has taken over the operations at Nendo and soon will start the next stage of field work exploration. The activities will include infill auger drilling in higher-grade areas of the project and to identify new areas within the project that are rich in bauxite mineralisation.

Au Capital also has mining leases in the Choiseul project.

Robert Sebek, Iron Mountain’s managing director, said that the acquisition and access to the bauxite projects gave them an opportunity to develop mining operation in an area which is close to the end users in East Asia.

“The Solomon Islands are ideally located close to Asian markets and potentially offer low-cost development of new discoveries,” explained Sebek.

The acquisition agreement will further require satisfactory due diligence. At the end of exploration, the directors of Iron Mountain Mining should get convinced that Nendo project will deliver at least eight million metric tons of bauxite ore with at least 45% alumina and less than 5% silica in total.