Pertinent market/industry news/articles, page-87

Ardea Resources [ASX:ARL] (OTC:ARRRF)
On March 28, Ardea Resources announced, "Ardea delivers outstanding Pre-Feasibility Study for the Goongarrie Nickel Cobalt Project with significant expansion potential." Highlights include:

• "1.0 Mtpa base case over an initial 25-year mine life is readily capable of expansion to reflect the orebody’s larger production potential.
• 95.5 % cobalt recovery and 94.5 % nickel recovery (life of mine).
• Strong financials for both the base 1.0 Mtpa and 1.5 Mtpa cases.

• 1.0 Mtpa base case production. 5,500 tpa of cobalt sulphate (1,180 tpa contained cobalt). 41,500 tpa of nickel sulphate (9,300 tpa contained nickel). Capital cost of A$599 million including A$77 million contingency. Competitive industry C1 cash cost of US$0.42/lb nickel metal (after cobalt credits).
• Strong interest from potential EPC and offtake partners.
• Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) programs underway.
• Upside options being assessed, including higher throughput/shorter autoclave residence time, multiple parallel trains, mineralised neutraliser optimisation, and scandium production.
• Goongarrie reserve is less than 5 % of the total Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) resource, confirming the project’s potential scalability."

"We have already commenced initial DFS programs and a scoping study on an expanded 2.25 Mtpa production scenario is being evaluated... The 1.0 Mtpa base case was selected to minimise initial funding requirements given the current market capitalisation of Ardea. A larger scale project is potentially fundable with a consortium or strategic partners assisting in development of the project as the resource base at Goongarrie is large."

On April 3, Ardea announced, "Ardea announces leadership transition Brett Clark appointed to lead Ardea through feasibility and operations Matt Painter to drive advancement of gold assets."
In total, Ardea has 405kt of contained cobalt and 5.46mt of contained nickel at their KNP project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
Investors can view their latest company presentation here, and my interview with former Managing Director Dr. Matt Painter on Trend Investing here. Interesting to now read in the latest company presentation Ardea state "commence production ~2021-2022", compared to the PFS which said 2022-23. They also stated "Scoping Studies exploring the potential of an upside 2.25Mtpa throughput scenario are nearing completion – Over 8,000 tpa cobalt sulphate, over 70,000tpa nickel sulphate."
Upcoming catalysts include:

• 2018 - Scoping Study on a 2.25Mtpa throughput scenario.
• End 2019 - DFS results - KNP cobalt project.

A comparison of Ardea Resources to peers

Note: No Q report mentioned as happening for the month of April 2018.
So? No big deal...right.