Originally posted by Jd2308
When your dealing with highly technical process of Hydrometallurgy Nickel laterite processing...
Sometimes new untrialled tech isn't the best route... by all means, build a standard trialled and tested plant and process flow, and add in at a later date parts of the new tech and trial and test it when the plant is operational to gain data... and see what bottlenecks and downtime events are caused, compile info and then build it into the plant..
Not just go straight to it... funding 1.49B US on a "Hope" it works, doesn't get anyone far... innovation is one thing.. stupidity is another.. there is a saying in processing... work smart not harder...
And this company has truly taken the hard path... any industry veteran in Nickel will see RIP IX tech and huge red flags will be raised... why? Cause its never worked yet... so why will it work now...
JD.
Capex will be way more than US$1.5B. In my experience, FEED capex will come in at least 20% higher, so another US$300M. Does Cleantec already know this and is this why financing is proving difficult? No way to know for sure but it's plausible.
To achieve nameplate, many more millions will be expended during commissioning and production ramp up. It's entirely plausible that all told, final capex will be 50% to 100% higher than the FEED estimate. US$3B to US$4B is not out of the realms of possibility in my opinion - can CLQ carry this? Most certainly not.
Nickel RIP is unproven at commercial scale. I agree Jd2308, Sunrise is too big a project to be trialling unproven technology. Laterite processing is already challenging enough without introducing something new. To those who argue that someone has to be the pioneer of new technology. Yes, that is true, but there are less risky ways of demonstrating technology without putting a US$1.5B processing facility at risk. Make no mistake, the RIP circuit is critical to the success of Sunrise - not quite the heart of the process but close to it. If RIP fails, Sunrise fails. It can be fixed later by ripping out RIP and the connected circuits, but that comes with a huge price tag, $$$$ and time delay.
Everyone knows my aversion to nickel laterite projects due to the unacceptable investment risk profile (unacceptable to me that is) but Sunrise is even more risky because of the RIP component.I wouldn't touch Cleantec with a barge pole. But I do wish good luck to all those who disagree and have the balls to place a bet on Cleantec.
All the above is my opinion.
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