Colleted by Chinatungsten Online-The initial focus of aspirant multi-commodity natural resource asset developer Premier African Minerals, which this week raised £1.5-million on admission to the London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim), is tungsten and rare-earth-elements exploration work in Zimbabwe.

The £6.7-million-market-cap company, which also has mineral projects in West Africa, intends operating as an explorer with a difference.

"We will not operate as a traditional junior exploration company,” says Premier African Minerals CEO George Roach, a former UraMin luminary.

Since 2007, the company has been establishing a diversified portfolio of in-demand commodities that have a potential to be fast-tracked into mines.

Premier African Minerals says that it will use the funds raised from the placing of 75-million shares at 2p a share to assist in the funding of project development activities, with the initial focus being on continuing exploration work at the former operating RHA tungsten mine and the Katet rare-earth-elements project, both in Zimbabwe.

Former Falconbridge geologist Bruce Cumming is technical director and Pamela Hueston is finance director.

The company is intent on acquiring RHA-like assets that have the benefits of historical exploration, reduced geological risk and the potential for rapid advancement.

Shore Capital Stockbrokers Limited is broker to the company and Cairn Financial Advisers its nominated adviser.

The company’s flexible approach to value creation embraces strategic joint ventures, disposals, development of projects to production by the group itself, or spin-offs to new entities.

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According to ‘The Huffington Post’ reports 2 days ago, a Juses lookalike guy, Nathan Grindal, had been asked to leave during tungsten dart championship game.

It was an arrowing experience for Nathan Grindal when more than 4,000 tungsten darts fans decided he looked like Jesus.

Vital Metals (ASX: VML) is moving closer to the completion of a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for its Watershed tungsten project in Queensland, having received detailed engineering designs. 
The DFS is slated for completion in the March quarter of 2013, with Vital’s end goal being production by 2014.
Mark Strizek, managing director, commented: “The Watershed Definitive Feasibility Study is in the final furlong with tangible results expected to be available in the next quarter as to the project’s value, CAPEX and OPEX.”
Vital will decide on the best configuration for plant based on capital cost and return, which will lead into pit optimisation and financial modelling.
This will then pave the way for the company to provide an update on project value.
Vital has made substantial progress on metallurgy at the project, with whole of ore flotation testwork indicating the potential to significantly improve the economics of the project through an increase in the recovery of scheelite mineralisation.
Lock cycle tests have been able to achieve a concentrate grade of 65% tungsten for a scheelite recovery of 84%.
The addition of whole of ore flotation to the DFS means that Vital is optimising two metallurgical processes with the goal of identifying which one provides the most cost-effective dollar per mtu option with regards to both capital and operating costs.
Given the high grade scheelite concentrate and high metal recoveries being achieved whole of ore flotation is currently Vital’s preferred option.
Vital and farm-in partner Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) have had meetings with five Japanese companies that have declared an interest in the project as potential partners and offtake buyers.
JOGMEC has been a key player in initiating discussions between Vital Metals and interested parties, as it has a mandate to secure supplies of ores and metals for Japanese companies, which is the reason for its involvement in the Watershed Project.
Japan needs a new source of tungsten, with 85% of tungsten coming from China alone.
JOGMEC is earning a 30% stake in the project by funding the Definitive Feasibility Study.
This partnership values Watershed tungsten project at $18 million.
Importantly, the JOGMEC funding has been brought forward from $900,000 to a complete spend of $5.3 million by the end of the March quarter.
Exploration upside

The Watershed Project ranks in the top 10 unexploited tungsten deposits worldwide, outside of China.

Measured, Indicated and Inferred Resources now total 20.6 million tonnes at 0.25% for 50,700 tonnes of tungsten at a 0.1% cut off.
The project has drill ready targets at surface and remains open at depth.
Project approvals are expected to be received in the first half of 2013.Analysis

Vital Metals flies under the radar for now.  Tungsten prices have been under pressure. The completion of the Watershed DFS in early 2013 should spark investor interest in Vital Metals.
A further catalyst for rerating of the company would be the securing of a Japanese partner for Watershed, which is highly possible with JOGMEC on board generating interest in the tungsten project.
Five Japanese companies have already declared their interest in the project as potential partners and offtake buyers.
Vital and its investors will soon have a clear indication of the value of the Watershed Project, which ranks in the top 10 unexploited tungsten deposits worldwide outside of China, through the delivery of the DFS.
The company’s market valuation of $6 million is light when considering the strong partner, discussions already underway with potential partners and offtakers, and a DFS on its way to completion.

While brass is still used for inexpensive darts, such darts are large in diameter and the grip wears down quickly.

Tungsten is a very dense metal, also very durable.  Using tungsten metal to make a dart barrel results in a smaller dart for the same weight.  For anyone who plays darts often, the durability is important, as that helps retain the dart's precision-machined shape, grooves, and knurling.

Size is usually the first factor considered when choosing tungsten darts.  At about half the diameter of a similar weight brass dart, it is a lot easier to fit two or more tungsten darts into a double or triple area. 

Think about the end of a cricket games, where you need to hit several bulls to finish.  An old-fashioned fat brass dart, the area is nearly covered by the first dart.  Switching to a slim tungsten dart barrel easily allows two or three darts to fit in the same area.  (Of course, you still have to be able to hit that bull!)

As with most products, tungsten darts are not all the same.  Raw tungsten does not melt easily, and is not readily made into machinable shapes.  Tungsten is generally ground into a fine powder, which is then blended with a variety of other metals that act as binding agents.  In the case of darts, the most common blends contain nickel, with smaller amounts of copper and ferrous compounds.  The mixture is heated and compressed to make a solid billet or bar, which can then be machined into darts barrels.

Very high percentages of tungsten, such as 98% tungsten darts, have a wonderful dense feel and a surface that resists wear for a long time.  However, the high concentration of tungsten powder also makes them brittle, and more prone to break if dropped on hard surface such as a concrete garage floor.  Very high density darts also are difficult to make, requiring special and expensive tooling to machine the barrels.

To get around those problems, most tungsten darts are now made of mixtures ranging from 70% to 95% tungsten.  Lower density barrels are much cheaper, as they are easier to manufacture with automated machinery  Low density darts also wear faster, from skin acid, friction, hitting other darts, falling on floors, etc.

The majority of steel-point darts used by competitive players in league and tournament play are now made of 90% Tungsten.  Soft-tip darts are commonly made of 80% tungsten, which is cheaper, less dense, and less brittle.  Soft-tip darts are prone to bounce out a lot, and electronic machines are often found in places with hard floors.  The softer 80% tungsten darts are less likely to break when constantly falling such hard floors.  As steel-point darts are more often played over carpeted areas, breakage is a little less of a problem.

Bristle dartboards for steel-point darts have a scoring are that is roughly 20% smaller than most soft-tip boards.  With smaller scoring areas on a bristle board, the thinner diameter of 90% or 95% tungsten darts makes sense for competitive steel-point darters.

Budget priced darts are generally made of 80% or 70% Tungsten.  Below 70%, most of the benefits of a tungsten dart are lost.  Darts made of 60% tungsten or less are very bulky, and have poor wear resistance.  The reason for making darts of 70% or less is to get the price down.. which generally means taking other shortcuts in the machining process that also result in a lesser quality dart.

Within each percentage range of tungsten darts, there is a wide range of quality.  Every company has its own special blend of metals that are combined to make the raw billets.  The best darts for competition are also the most expensive to make and the most difficult to machine.  Cheaper darts can be made by adjusting the blend by adding softer metals.  For instance, a bit more copper or iron may be added.  A "softer" blend means that cheaper cutting tools can be used, the tooling won't dull as quickly,  and the machinery can produce more darts in a given amount of time.

Different blends may also slightly change the appearance of the finished darts.  Some darts look shinier, others have a more grainy appearance.  Surface treatments during the manufacturing process can also make a great difference in the appearance of a new set of darts.  A wide variey of coatings are often applied to darts barrels, ranging from simple paint or powder-coating to high-tech vapor-deposit coatings such as Titanium Nitride.

What about the really cheap tungsten darts at the local "big-box" store?  Some darts advertised as "Tungsten" actually have very little tungsten content, even though at first glance they may look similar to a good quality dart.  The main giveaway is that these cheap imitation darts will be much larger in diameter & length, for the same weight as a high-quality dart.  And the price may be substantially cheaper than most other Tungsten darts.  Think in terms of buying gold jewelry at a flea market.. there would probably be little or no actual gold in that pretty bauble that sold for a super "bargain" price!

Some common sense rules are universal, no matter what the product. If a price looks too low to be real, then the darts are probably not any sort of a bargain.

Ferro Tungsten is an alloy, which is formed by combining iron and tungsten with a tungsten content range in two grades (A and B) and the content ranges are 75%-82% and 70%-75% respectively. Ferro Tungsten is a remarkably robust alloy because of its high melting point, tungsten has the second highest melting point after carbon. By combining iron with tungsten, the tendencies towards brittleness are overcome from the raw state of tungsten, and Ferro Tungsten is often a major component of popular super alloys.

Domestic tungsten ore market keep steady currently. Mainstream tungsten concentrate prices with more then 60% tungsten focus on ￥115,000.00-118,000.00/mt currently, while scheelite concentrate focus on ￥113,000.00-116,000.00/mt. Although some tungsten miners are more confident to ship, the real transaction volume is not satisfied enough. Thereby, the transaction volume is still low.

Chinatungsten Online analyzes, tungsten ore prices are about to be steady because the phenomenon of unrealistic rising price under guiding price is removed gradually recently. The situation of supply exceeds demand still exists, which results in hopeless attitude of tungsten ore traders. Chinatungsten Online forecasts that tungsten concentrate market keeps steady and weak; tungsten concentrate prices are rear to change.

The mainstream scrap tungsten prices maintains steady. The transaction price excluding tax of domestic blade is ￥171.00-￥174.00/kg, reduces ￥1.00/kg; imported blade is ￥182-186/kg; scrap tungsten bit still concentrates on ￥187.00-￥191.00/kg scrap pure tungsten block is ￥208.00-￥213.00/kg.

The price of the content of scrap tungsten grinding material which is more than 70W is ￥1330.00/mtu, 50W-70W is ￥1270.00/mtu, 30W-40W is ￥1110.00/mtu. The prices above are steady. 10W-20W tungsten unit to ￥635.00/mtu while 8W-10W tungsten to ￥571.00/mtu.

With falling price of tungsten concentrate, tungsten miners are bit more willing to ship. The weak aspect becomes obviously that high-level of transaction price reduce slightly but ‘high-price with low-demand’ situation still exists. At the end of year, scrap tungsten resource is short as well as demand, so traders are inactive to deal. Chinatungsten Online predict that scrap tungsten prices will keep steady generally but falling feebly.

In the international market, tungsten concentrate prices show its trend to move up constantly. By the night of 14th, the guiding price of MB ferrotungsten in warehouse Rotterdam maintains $43.00-44.00 per kilogram tungsten, the highest level has increased $0.50; the quotation of ammonium paratungstate keeps $304.00-330.00/mtu.

According to monkshood media reports, black stands with South Korea by the end of 2013 established joint venture, cooperative tungsten exploitation is located in nano walter Iraqi state gaza, uzziah, Iraq tungsten resources.

As early as in August 2011, black geoscientific committee and South Korea "Shindong" company signed the agreement on joint venture was established, and now the cooperation project will invite monkshood Alma rick mining machinery association and monkshood heat resisting refractory metal complexes two enterprises to participate in, and ultimately joint venture company set up files is yet to be signed. The project is expected to invest 150 million us dollars, design with high concentration of tungsten selected 1500 tons. Nano walter Iraqi state gaza's black and the block have tungsten resources 199000 tons. 

At present the whole tungsten market is weak, some tungsten ore traders to shipment's willing is improved, but the actual transaction still don't give force; Sodium tungstate weak demand, the price appears small loose; Tungsten products market performance relative stationary; The waste tungsten aspects of supply and demand of two weak, watchers more. Expected short-term market stalemate difficult to drop , price fluctuation not big.

Mr. David Henstridge , President of Tumi Resources Limited, reports that the Company has staked six areas covering tungsten and strategic metals totaling 3,680 hectares in the Bergslagen District of south-central Sweden , each being 100% owned by the Company.  The primary commodity on these licences is tungsten (and associated fluorite and beryllium), a strategic metal that has seen its value increase by more than 70% since October 2010 . The tungsten metal market is expected to see future shortages, which are due in part to export restrictions imposed by China . China is the largest producer with 2009 data showing greater than 75% of global production but is soon expected to be a net importer of the metal. By staking these six properties the Company will be well positioned for tungsten exploration in Sweden over the coming years.

Mr Henstridge stated, "I am pleased to report that Tumi has positioned itself as a major player in tungsten and associated strategic metal exploration in Sweden . As the Yxsjoberg mineralization may also contain significant additional values in the form of beryllium, copper and fluorite, the company will initially focus attention on this area, particularly looking at the reprocessing potential of the tailings ponds".

Brief details of the six areas are as follows:

Yxsjon: The Yxsjon licence contains the historic Yxsjoberg mine that is a skarn-hosted tungsten-copper-beryllium deposit. The earliest records of mining at Yxsjoberg date back to the 18th and 19th centuries when the deposit was mined for copper. Scheelite (CaW0₃) was first identified in 1862, and tungsten was mined between 1918 and 1921. A new concentrator was built in 1937 after the mine had been reopened, and a roasting furnace and new gravimetric separator was added in 1951. A circuit for the production of fluorite (CaF₂) concentrate was added in 1956. After closure in 1963 due to poor metal prices, the Swedish State-owned mining company AB Statsgruvor acquired the mine, and the construction of a completely new concentrator and headframe began in 1970. The new plant was put in production in 1972 and was converted from gravimetric separation of scheelite and chalcopyrite to selective flotation in 1977. The mine ended operations in 1989, again due to low tungsten prices. The known mineralization continues to a depth of 750 meters, but geophysical measurements indicate that it is likely to continue down to at least 900 meters (NSG report NSG_89026).

The Yxsjoberg process plant has largely been left untouched since the closure of the mine, and two large ponds containing 2.4 and 2.2 million metric tons of tailings remain (Comet, 1992). Though the remaining known tungsten resource in the mine is limited to approximately 500,000 tonnes of mineralization averaging 0.35% WO₃*, the tailings should also be considered for reprocessing. The average grade of the tailings has been estimated to be approximately 0.19% WO₃* with additional values to be obtained by recovering beryllium, copper and fluorite. According to a report by Kemakta Konsult AB the total tonnage of beryllium in the tailings may exceed 920 tonnes at an average grade of approximately 0.02% beryllium*. As the beryllium price is in around $930 USD /kg the additional metal value may be significant.

Gussarvet: Flood et al, 1981 report (Grb 232) inferred historical resources* of 200,000 tonnes at 0.34% WO₃ following a 15 hole diamond drill program in which drill hole GAH 6 intersected 7.75 m averaging 0.64% WO₃ and 31.3 m grading 0.37% WO₃. The tungsten mineralization occurs in skarn and epidote-quartzite associated with an approximately 100 m wide NE-SW trending carbonate horizon. According to the 1981 report, the SW end of the mineralization appears to be cut by a fault, and one of our objectives will be to locate the extension of the mineralization on the other side of the fault. The report also suggests that the mineralization may be open towards depth, thus making this a high priority target. The Hällsjön-Gussarvet area remains under-explored and will be one of the first areas to be explored by the Company to confirm and increase the historical resource.

Wigstromsgruvan: The licence area contains a small historic tungsten mine that fed ore to the nearby but now closed Yxsjoberg mine mill. Scheelite and fluorite mineralization occur in garnet-diopside skarn within mafic metavolcanics. Production figures reveal 130,456 tonnes of ore grading 0.28% WO₃ were shipped to the mill. Ore was produced from a slot-cut approximately 200 m long and up to 50 m deep. Records suggest the mineralization remains open along strike and at depth, hence significant mineral resources remained in place at the time of the mine closure.

Sandudden: Scheelite and fluorite ore from a test-pit was also shipped to the Yxsjöberg mill with mineralization having similar characteristics to that found at Wigstromsgruvan. Production from the test-pit was 17,080 tonnes grading 0.22% WO₃, mined from two benches to a depth of 10 m. Kontio, et al, 1979 report inferred historical resources* in the area of 422,000 tonnes at a grade of 0.25% WO₃ and 5% CaF₂. The Sandudden area remains under-explored and will be one of the first areas to be explored by the Company to both confirm and increase the historical resource.

Gustavsberg: The licence area contains a historic iron mine in the Riddarhyttan area of central Sweden . Documentation from the mine indicated that copper and tungsten mineralization was found in the skarn adjacent to the iron ore. Mine geologists reported discoveries of "up to football-sized patches of scheelite" in the footwall skarn. The mineralization is located in a N-S to NW-SE trending band of thinly bedded/banded metavolcanic rocks of alternating felsic and mafic nature. No modern exploration for tungsten has been done in the area although prospectors have been reporting scheelite occurring in the remnant waste dumps at the mine; a recent inspection by Company geologists discovered scheelite in excess of 4 cm in size. This information suggests the Gustavsberg licence area to be a prime target for modern tungsten exploration.

Gensgruvan: A small mine called Molybdengruvan operated within the licence area for a few years in the 1940's. Production figures from 1944 record 1,600 tonnes of ore were mined with an average grade of 0.3% WO₃. Local geological surveys have unearthed a number of untested outcrops containing scheelite mineralization. Also, a large number of mineralized boulders have been discovered in the area, but the source has not been located.