nickel players find the going tough, page-2

Nickel players find the going tough
• Jamie Freed
• May 26, 2008
• Page 2 of 2

Hopes high for Heron

For a small company, Heron Resources has attracted a lot of attention from big nickel miners, including BHP and Brazil's Vale. Both have become major shareholders: BHP with 15.6 per cent; Vale with 13.46 per cent.
Vale is earning a 60 per cent stake in Heron's Kalgoorlie nickel project, which is one of the world's largest undeveloped laterite projects. A pre-feasibility study should be completed in January.

But after a series of setbacks, Heron is also progressing its wholly-owned Yerilla project, with help from a technology agreement with BHP. Instead of heap leaching 10,000 tonnes a year from the Jump-Up Dam deposit, which was shown to be unviable economically, the company is now examining atmospheric leaching. Using atmospheric leaching, Heron will be able to beneficiate (upgrade) the ore before it is leached. Therefore, Heron will need less acid - an expensive input - to extract a planned 20,000 tonnes of nickel a year.
BHP is using the atmospheric leaching process on the saprolite ore at its Ravensthorpe plant. Instead of using high-pressure acid leaching, like it does on the limonite ore, the saprolite ore is instead leached in large brick-lined tanks.