Nickel Rose again..., page-134

rusty, please for your own sake stop comparing nickel sulphide to nickel laterite. I keep thinking you just do not understand the difference.
And no there is no short cut. AVQ does not have some magic hidden technology. If they want to produce on-site it will cost $2bn. Look at the Ramu nickel mine, right by the water and capex was $2 billion But you are saying they should have consulted AVQ first and built in stages while producing and making top dollar. C'mon man.

SIR is leagues ahead of AVQ because it has nickel sulphide. SIR produces onsite and get 100% of spot. AVQ will not produce onsite and get 5% of spot. Hence while you state the capex will be lower you are comparing apples and oranges. To get 100% of spot and produce onsite the capex would be 400% higher than SIR's


Sulphide

Sulphide type nickel deposits are formed in essentially the same manner as platinum deposits. These sulphide ores are generally found hundreds of metres below surface, and generally require underground mining infrastructure. The main benefit to sulphide ores is that they can be concentrated using a simple physical separation technique called flotation.

Laterite

The process of forming laterite deposits is essentially similar to the formation of gold laterite deposits. Laterites are traditional to the surface, about 15 to 20m deep, and occur where nickel sulphides have been converted to oxide ores. Being closer to the surface, laterites can be mined via open-cut methods. However, there is no simple separation technique for nickel laterites. The rock must be completely molten or dissolved to enable nickel extraction. As a result, laterite projects require large economies of scale at higher capital cost per unit of capacity to be viable. They are also generally much higher cash-cost producers than sulphide operations.