Ok, so at the 11:50 minute mark of the presentation Steve Norregaard repeated what he had said in a recent interview: that they continue to work towards having Armstrong production-ready at the end of this calendar year but that SN is "supremely opportunistic" and that he would like to think that they will be "ready to go by June this year". He noted that it is not a bad thing to have "some slack in the aspirations". He said earlier that the full feasibility study for the Armstrong project and the the permitting applications are underway. Ok, great, let's adopt the opportunistic scenario and assume that Armstrong will be production ready by June.
The next major hurdle is to sign up Widgie's preferred customer: BHP and its Kamalda concentrator.
Given up till now I know nothing about the BHP Kamalda operations I thought I'd do some digging and recording for future reference.
In May last year BHP Nickel West’s idled Kambalda concentrator sprang back to life after processing the first parcel of ore from Mincor’s restarted nickel operations in the area. This is the first processing operations at the refurbished BHP facility since it was placed on care and maintenance in 2018 after IGO closed its Long nickel mine. Mincor's ore deliveries are converted into an imputed nickel-in-concentrate using a grade-recovery curve. The Kambalda concentrator only processes third party ore.
https://thewest.com.au/business/mining/nickel-wests-kambalda-concentrator-back-in-action-with-mincor-c-6727769
Over 85% of BHP's Nickel West's product is sold to global battery material suppliers and on average each EV requires 40 kg of nickel. BHP claims that Nickel West is the world's "leading" nickel supplier to the battery metals market.
The nickel concentrate from Kambalda and two other concentrators - both of which concentrate ore from BHP owned mines - come together at the Nickel West Kalgoorlie smelter. The smelter uses a flash furnace to smelt concentrate to produce nickel matte. Nickel West Kwinana then refines granulated nickel matte from the Kalgoorlie smelter into premium-grade nickel powder and briquettes containing 99.8 per cent nickel. Nickel powder is further processed into nickel sulphate at Australia’s first nickel sulphate plant, co-located at the Kwinana Nickel Refinery. Nickel sulphate is an essential ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries that drive electric cars. BHP is working on having the Kambalda concentrator 100% powered by wind power.
https://www.bhp.com/what-we-do/global-locations/australia/western-australia/nickel-west
The concentrator has the capacity to process about 1.6 million tonnes of ore per year.
https://mywikis-wiki-media.s3.us-central-1.wasabisys.com/ehwa/Nickel_West_Flowchart_Kalgoorlie_Kambalda_Final_Oct10.pdf
Mincor's deal is that it can have between 200k to 600k tonnes pa of ore toll processed at the concentrator with BHP then buying the concentrate.
https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/mincor-nickel-en-route-to-bhp-concentrator/
From all of this I surmise that BHP covers its costs for running the Kambalda processor because Mincor and hopefully Widgie would effectively cover those costs in the toll rate they pay. BHP only pays Mincor and hopefully Widgie for the end product from the concentrator. So it would be for Mincor's and Widgie's benefit if Mincor was hitting its maximum rates of 600k oz pa and if Widgie was all it could to use up as much as possible of the 1.0mtpa of capacity (assuming some of the costs of running the Kambalda concentrator are variable costs).
So it is not as if Widgie will have to twist BHP's arm to have them accept Widgie ore at the Kambalda concentrator: quite explicitly BHP is running the Kamalda concentrator in the hope that the likes of Widgie do have ore processed there. I am reassured about this arrangement.
