Announcement out from Australian Mines (mkt cap $308m) on 19th Feb was interesting, and possibly something for us to look toward to after the PFS is confirmed. Would be nice to have further assistance from a buyer on the BFS, and I'm sure many other similar companies looking to have exposure or secure offtake.
https://australianmines.com.au/asx-announcement
Project Details:
Our flagship Sconi Project is one of very few large ore bodies of its type in Australia and is also considered the most advanced towards production.
All relevant mining and environmental licences are in place for development of a mining and processing operation at Sconi, located in the historic and well-supported mining centre of Greenvale in Queensland.
The Pre-Feasibility Study for Sconi was based on throughput estimated to deliver an annual average production of 3,010 tonnes of cobalt sulphate, 24,420 tonnes of nickel sulphate and 77 tonnes of scandium oxide for at least the first 20 years, with average feed grades being 0.11% cobalt, 0.81% nickel and 109 g/t scandium.
Expected average feed grade at the Sconi Project to be 0.11% cobalt and 0.81% nickel for at least the first 20 years of the operation .
While the mineral resource estimate for the Sconi Project is 0.06% cobalt, these zones contain average feed grade of 0.11% cobalt (and 0.81% nickel).
Havilah
Havilah has higher Co grades at 0.14% Co, with the benefit of high copper grades and 1.23% Cu (yes aware Ni is worth x2, but is more expensive to process and grades not much off x2 - apples and oranges I know.). I haven't seen any numbers around expected Co production, and could only find older numbers of around 42,500t Cu. This included 35,000t from Kalkaroo flotation + 7,500 from Mutooroo flotation.
Earlier diagrams have Mutooroo flotation producing 750tpa of leached cobalt salts, but only advising 400,000tpa pyrite -pyrrhotite conc with cobalt, sulphur and gold would be roasted. This of course all changes depending on Cobalt Blue's findings. So tough to make assumptions on recoveries, throughput etc
Further to this, given we have around 5 weeks left in the quarter and commitments to deliver within 1Q18:
- Kalkaroo PFS
- Kalkaroo Probable Reserves
- Mutooroo PFS & Permitting funding negotiation
- North Portia upgraded JORC resource
- Porta results of tails assays
It looks like we're in for a flurry of (hopefully) positive announcements and catalysts to the share price....
DYOR
(20min delay)