Well thats a large document which will take time to absorb. My...

Well thats a large document which will take time to absorb. My first impression is that if that is the "simplified" process stream then I would hate to see the earlier more complex process stream!

All the mining itself looks pretty conventional but in the design and operation of the process stream it looks like they are going to have to construct a non-conventional mill that will be dealing with all the technical risks of pressure oxidation, SX-EW and cyanide to produce more refined products than just traditional metal sulphide concentrates.

So this monster of a plant:

...will produce the following end products:
• Copper cathode;
• Zinc ingot;
• Silver doré;
• Cobalt sulphate; and
• Nickel sulphate.

The only saving grace of this plan is they won't have the massive logistics problem of bulk metal concentrates and rail/road and port bottlenecks and infrastructure in their remote location.

But think of the complexity of this plant and the power usage, and how unique this plant will be and the fun they will have to recruit skilled personnel to run this plant. What are the chances that all of these things will be built on time and under budget and operate without any teething issues?

To solve the complex ore body metal content and to maximise revenue they are effectively trying to solve these issues at the plant scale on-site rather than deal with the downstream logistics/market issues. Full credit to AML for trying to maximise the metal recovery and extraction, and minimise the metals being left behind, but the technical risk of that plant operating and all the inputs into it make this a giant capital intensive bench-top lab experiment.

If this ever gets up and going I think it will be the only Cu+Zn+Ag+Co and Ni cathode-ingot-doré-sulphate producing operation in Australia if not the entire world, and they are still leaving the Pb behind in the "too hard" basket.