@ChickenK1ng, while we'd prefer Lava Blue's demo plant to have...

@ChickenK1ng, while we'd prefer Lava Blue's demo plant to have put through their first run of QPM product, from the June22 quarterly it appears that would only take less than 3 months once the plant is commissioned, so March/APril through to June may be the latest timing, just in time for FID.
Looking back through past presentations, it appears the direct nickel flowsheet has been altered during QPM's feasibility program.
March21 it looked like this:

Sept21 quarterly described the work with Simulus, and some of the problems they were having:


By the Dec21 preso, the impending entry of Lava Blue was being covered:


Now the process flow shown in the Nov22 AFS shows the two options being considered for the HPA and the refinery sitting off to the side.
I'm assuming if the imported intermediate feedstock now stays as the 'base case', it shouldn't affect the project critical path.



Looks like in the lab the imported stuff is cheaper and easier to process, but the demo plant would verify if that holds true when scaled up.


While it appears that the HPA aspect has been downgraded, the team are leaving its inclusion in Stage 2 open subject to market demand.
At $25K/tonne, I can appreciate that!
Here's some food for more research - micro LEDs could fuel HPA demand:
https://unauthorised investment advice/resources/high-purity-alumina-demand-could-increase-300-by-2028-here-are-the-asx-stocks-helping-to-plug-the-gap/
sub in disallowed for *****head.