Re comments on capex of hydromet plant and influence of grade on...

Re comments on capex of hydromet plant and influence of grade on sizing and thus cost of the plant. My take is that there is no difference if the concentrate grade was 20% or 40%.

My figuring indicates that around 500,000 tonnes per annum of ore can produce the 3,000 tonnes of REO that are projected to be delivered.

After concentration to 20% around 100,000 tonnes per annum are delivered to the hydromet plant.

Thus about 300 tonnes per day are to be processed which converts to around 12 tonnes per hour. Around the weight in a medium truck.

The problem would be to find equipment small enough that is commercially available to do such a low throughput. It would be more the scale of a test plant. Most likely NTU will have to batch process leaving capacity for future growth.