Luanga Project is a palladium + platinum + rhodium + gold + nickel (PGM+Au+Ni) deposit located in Pará State, Brazil.
The project is 100% owned by Canadian and Brazil-based mineral exploration and development company Bravo Mining.
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In July 2025, the company announced the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the polymetallic mine.
The assessment evaluated two operational scenarios- a ‘Base Case’, which involves selling flotation concentrates to a third-party refiner, and an ‘Alternate Case’, which considers a vertically integrated operation.
The Base Case would require initial capital expenditures (CAPEX) of $495.8m, with sustaining CAPEX at $115m. Meanwhile, the Alternate Case would necessitate an initial CAPEX of $677.6m.
The production schedule assumes a 17-year life of mine (LOM).
Luanga Project Location
The Luanga Project is located in Carajás Mineral Province, Pará State, Brazil. The site includes 7,810-hectare area under a mining exploration licence. It is located on private farmland primarily used for cattle ranching, with no indigenous claims or protected forest areas.
It lies around 45km north-northeast of Parauapebas, a major mining hub in the region. The nearest towns are Curionópolis, 17km south-southwest, and Serra Pelada, 12km west.
Geology and Mineralisation
The Luanga Project is hosted in a ‘classic’ Proterozoic mafic-ultramafic complex, with a near-surface expression approximately 7km long and 3.5km wide.
Mineralisation in the Luanga Complex predominantly occurs at the contact between basal ultramafic rocks and overlying mafic rocks, with minor silicate-hosted mineralisation present higher in the overturned mafic unit.
The mineralised zones, which are 10m to 50m thick, are dominated by higher palladium-to-platinum ratios, along with rhodium, gold, and nickel.
Luanga Project Mineral Resources
According to the 2025 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the Luanga Project, measured and indicated resources total 158 million tonnes, with an average grade of 2.04 grams per tonne Palladium Equivalent (PdEq1), amounting to 10.4 million ounces of PdEq1.
This represents a 117% increase in combined Measured and Indicated tonnes compared to the Indicated tonnes reported in 2023, alongside a 17% improvement in grade.
The Inferred Resources are reported at 78 million tonnes, grading 2.01 grams per tonne PdEq1, totalling 5.0 million ounces of PdEq1.
The Measured and Indicated resources now constitute 67% of the total MRE.
Mining and Recovery
The PEA envisions conventional open-pit mining, utilising drill-and-blast, loading, and hauling operations at Luanga Project. Mining activities will occur in 10m benches, with a one-year ramp-up period and phase sequencing aimed at prioritising higher-grade zones and lower strip ratios in the initial years.
The final pit design supports a total mine life of 17 years, based on a run-of-mine (ROM) production rate of 10 million tonnes per year. The overall mining rate is expected to reach up to 103.6 million tonnes annually, including ROM, waste, and re-handling.
This operation will be supported by a fleet comprising up to six hydraulic excavators, 44 off-highway trucks with capacities of up to 242 tonnes, and nine drill rigs.
Waste material will be transported to a Waste Rock Storage Facility (WRSF), while tailings will be filtered and managed in a Dry Stacking Facility (DSF) within the project site.
The Luanga Project’s processing plan is based on metallurgical testwork and is designed for fresh mineralised material.
The initial plant capacity is set at 5 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), with plans to increase to 10 Mtpa by the second year.
ROM material will be delivered to a primary crushing area equipped with a grizzly and MMD crusher. The crushed material will then be transported via a long-distance belt conveyor to a coarse stockpile, from where it will be reclaimed and processed through a three-stage comminution circuit.
This circuit includes a semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill, an open-circuit secondary ball mill, and two tertiary ball mills in closed circuit with hydrocyclones.
The classification process aims for a final grind size of 28 micrometres. Cyclone overflow will be thickened to increase solids content before undergoing flotation, which involves rougher, scavenger, cleaner, and recleaner stages.
Tailings from this process will be filtered and dry stacked.
The final concentrate will be thickened, stored, and filtered using pressure plates, with an annual production target of 184 kilo tonnes of dry concentrate.
Project Infrastructure
The polymetallic mine project will cover an area of approximately 1,600 hectares.
Main facilities comprise an open pit, a WRSF, a DSF, settling ponds, process water treatment, a tailings dam for the first two years of operations, a water reservoir, maintenance shops, and administrative buildings among others.
A 35km long 230kV transmission line will supply electrical power to the project via the Carajás Substation. The system can handle a peak load of 100MW.
The main substation, located near the processing plant, will reduce voltage from 230kV to 13.8kV for distribution.
A 15m high water dam will be constructed within the project area to create a reservoir with a capacity of 2.7 million cubic metres, sufficient to meet average operational demand. A contingency system will allow for the diversion of up to 136 cubic metres per hour from the Sereno River via a 4.9km pipeline.
The process circuits will utilise recirculated water recovered from tailings and concentrate thickeners, which will be stored in a process water tank and distributed throughout the plant.
Contractors Involved
GE21 Consultoria Mineral served as an independent engineering consultant for the preparation of Luanga PGM+Au+Ni Project PEA.
