Corporate Overview
South American Iron & Steel is currently developing magnetite iron sands and conventional iron ore projects in Chile. The company's strategic objective is the establishment of viable and long term mining operations in the country that will allow the beneficiation of minerals into saleable magnetite primary concentrates containing 54-58% iron.
The company also actively looks for and reviews other mining and resource opportunities in Chile and Ecuador in an effort to broaden the company's project, mineral base and increase shareholder value.
If a magnetite iron sands resource sufficient for 20-30 years of mining can be established then the company will actively pursue the development of a pig iron smelter in either Chile or Ecuador depending on the investment climate at the time.
Based upon the current resource, metallurgical and mineralogical knowledge of the deposits so far, primary concentrate production from a mining operation could be in the order of 2 million tonnes per annum resulting in the production of approximately 1 million tonnes of pig iron annually.
Slag produced annually form a smelting process will be unique in that it will contain highly saleable products including up to 400,000 tonnes of titanium dioxide at a nominal grade of 86% TiO2 and 9,000 tonnes of vanadium peroxide (V2O5). Demand for pig iron, titanium slag and vanadium slag remains very strong.
Magnetite ores are steadily moving up the China agenda and investment in magnetite projects is escalating and building momentum.
The companies development model is based upon Blue Scope Steel 'New Zealand Steel' operation which has been operating successfully since 1972 producing both titanomagnetites for sale into Japan & China but also using its own iron sands magnetite to produce pig iron in New Zealand. The simple and proven technology proposed is similar to that successfully employed at Blue Scope Steel's iron sands operation in New Zealand.
The major iron ore producers such as Rio Tinto, BHP together with FMG, Sino Steel, etc. have already begun accumulating iron sands areas off the coast of New Zealand in preparation for the decline in availability of higher grade conventional iron ore sources.
