Quarry, plant proposed for Foleyet.

An anorthosite processing plant could be built in Foleyet within a year pending the results of a test sample being taken this month.

Southern Africa Minerals Corp., a junior mining company based in Burlington, has an option to purchase property for a proposed quarry at a site 34 kilometres southwest of the village of Foleyet.

The plan is to haul the ore by truck to a proposed $2.5-million processing plant and storage facility in Foleyet via a Domtar logging road. The deposit is estimated to contain 858,504 tonnes of ore representing about 40 years of mining based on extracting 20,000 tonnes annually.

"That doesn't sound like very much, but it is enough to produce a healthy cash flow for the company" says Denis Francoeur, president and chief executive officer of Southern Africa Minerals. The company is also exploring for base metals near Matagami and Val d'Or, Que. and is in the search for diamonds in the Ungava Bay region.

"We decided to look at opportunities in industrial minerals in an area that is fairly accessible and could produce cash flow on a relatively short-term basis," Francoeur says.

Anorthosite, a greyish to whitish fine-grained rock, is used in glass, ceramics, metallurgical and filler applications.

But prior to any development proceeding, the company plans to extract a 500-tonne bulk sample this month that, if successful, might lead to a purchase contract with a major glass manufacturer. The undisclosed company has expressed interest in using Foleyet anorthosite in its production plants. Other customers have been targeted as well.

The bulk sample would be taken to a contractor's lab and would take about a month to process before being shipped to the potential customer for a full plant trial. A decision would be made in early spring based on the results. The plant could be functional as early as the fall of 2002.

Blasting operations at the quarry would last for a couple of months a year in the early spring and fall, with mining and transportation to be contracted out to various local firms. About three full-time jobs would be created at the plant, which would operate year-round, running on the stockpile of stored material.

"We'll start with one shift, and our intention is to mine about 24,000 tonnes annually, and then we can increase production by adding a shift without having to add equipment," Francoeur says.

The small-scale operation will be fairly simple with a crusher and magnetic separator to produce a powder-like material.

The area has been under exploration since the mid-1990s by Purechem Ltd. who conducted a geological evaluation of the property. Don Hains, the principle of Purechem and a chemical engineer specializing in industrial minerals, will become general manager of the Foleyet operation if they are successful in bringing the property to production.

Foleyet, located about halfway between Chapleau and Timmins, is served by Highway 101 and CN rail. Having road and rail access close by were big selling points to the mining company.