Port Loko, Sierra Leone

History -

In October 2004 Moydow signed an option agreement with Gondwana Investments Limited to allow Moydow to earn an interest in the Port Loko Bauxite concession in Sierra Leone. Since the completion of a pre-feasibility study on the project by CAM llc of Denver. Moydow now hold a 50% interest in the project and a full engineering and processing review is currently underway.

The Port Loko bauxite concession comprises a large tract of land of over 650 square kilometres in the North East of Sierra Leone. Exploration on the property in the past has outlined a resource of some 100 Mt of bauxite, with an average grade of 47% Al₂O₃, mainly as gibbsite.

The Port Loko bauxite deposit has been known since the early 1970s when Sieromco, the Sierra Leone subsidiary of AluSuisse, conducted exploration on the property. Sieromco explored over a large area about 80 km long and 5 km wide, stretching north and south of Port Loko.

Sieromco relinquished its rights to the concession in the 1986 and the property lay dormant. Jupiter Export-Import Ltd., a local Sierra Leone company, obtained rights to the concession in 1992 under an Exclusive Prospecting Licence. In 1994 Jupiter began active field work to reestablish the original base lines, tie lines and cross lines. In 1996 Jupiter acquired an Exclusive Prospecting Licence (EPL 4/96) and spent approximately $US 1 million conducting mapping, exploration, sampling and other work on the property, in addition to work on the port facilities at Pepel. The focus of Jupiter's activity was in the central portion of the concession south of Port Loko and north of the Rokel River. This region represented approximately 30% of the total concession area of approximately 650 km2. Jupiter was able to confirm much of the Sieromco work regarding the size and quality of the deposit. Overall, Jupiter developed sufficient information to define approximately 31 million tonnes Indicated Resources and 27 million tonnes Inferred Resources.

- Studies indicate that the Port Loko deposit is quite heterogeneous, with individual blocks varying between 70,000 tonnes to over 5 million tonnes. The material with the best grades and thickenss lies in the central and southern regions of the concession area known as the Yenkisa, Lungi and Tekeya zones and it is in these areas that Moydow have, up to now, concentrated their efforts. Overburden averages here approximately 2.1 m. Massive bauxite averages approximately 6.8 m thickness.

One of the key attractive features of the Port Loko bauxite deposits is the presence of a significant amount of infrastructure. A rail line runs through the centre of the Port Loko deposit to a major port facility at Pepel. The port has the capability of loading Panamax size vessels at rates up to 4,000 tonnes per hour. This is one of the few such ports on the west coast of Africa, comparable with Port Kamsar in Guinea.

Current Status of the Project -

The Port Loko bauxite concession has been extensively explored in the past and feasibility studies have been prepared at that time. The previous work, together with the study by CAM llc of Denver forms an excellent basis for the present exploration and technical review program.

From studies of the previous work and the recent pre-fesibility it appears that there is a higher grade core at the centre of the deposit. Moydow's initial goal was the confirmation here of the earlier results for an area with approximately 25 million tonnes with an average grade of at least 48% bauxite.

Since 2005, Moydow has executed an exploration program which has included the re-cutting of Sieromco and Jupiter grid lines, cleaning (122) and deepening and sampling (76) of Sieromco and Jupiter pits, drilling and sampling of 423 hollow-stem auger holes (total 3,497m), differential GPS surveys, and sample processing at the Rogberi Exploration camp.

- There are several production scenarios which the Port Loko project lends itself to. The presence of the higher grade core, together with its proximity to the railway, presents the opportunity for selective mining and shipping of the ore to an out of country refining facility. This scenario is along the same lines as is currently being employed by Sierra Minerals Limited at their Mokanjii deposit.

The recent recovery in the aluminium price, however, means that there also exists the potential to develop a much larger mining operation, which would seek to develop the entire resource base at Port Loko and process the ore into alumina at a refinery based in Sierra Leone. With this latter scenario in mind, Moydow and its partners Gondwana have recently commenced discussions with third parties and the Government of Sierra Leone to evaluate the economics of a refinery and associated facilities to be based in-country.

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