Ferrexpo

Ferrexpo plc commissioned SRK to produce a Minerals Expert Report (MER) as part of a prospectus for a global offering of shares and admission of ordinary shares for listing on the London Stock Exchange. Ferrexpo plc successfully listed in June 2007.

Located near the town of Komsomolsk, 25km southeast of the town of Kremenchug and 320km southeast of Kiev, Ferrexpo’s mining assets consist of a series of nine iron ore deposits, two of which – namely, Gorishne-Plavninskoe and Lavrikovskoe – have been exploited from a single open pit.

The current size of the open pit is approximately 5.5km (north-south) by 1.5km (east-west) and it has now reached a depth below surface of some 300m. Ore is processed in two streams with a capacity of 10Mtpa by primary and secondary crushers, grinding mills and dry and wet magnetic separators. The ore is further processed by flotation and re-grinding through to a pelletizing plant operated in four streams with a capacity of 2.5Mtpa each.

In valuing the Ferrexpo mining assets for the report, SRK undertook a full due diligence review, which included several site visits by experts in geology, mining, processing, tailings, infrastructure and environmental and social sciences. SRK also reviewed Ferrexpo’s 30-year business plan and produced a discounted cash flow valuation of current and future operations.

As a key component of the work, SRK reviewed the Soviet-era polygonal resource and reserve estimates produced by the Company and reported these using the reporting terminology of the JORC Code. SRK has significant experience in reviewing such Soviet-era estimates and interpreting them in terms of more internationally-recognized reporting codes. In fact SRK is now working with relevant authorities in Moscow and institutions internationally to bridge the gap between these reporting methods so that resource and reserve estimates produced in Russia can be better understood elsewhere in the world.

Mike Armitage: marmitage@srk.co.uk

You can download a PDF of the entire Focus on Iron Ore newsletter	PDF A4	PDF Letter

Our newsletters focus on specific areas of interest to earth resource professionals and clients. Each is available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. If you don't already have Adobe's PDF reader, you can download it free.