It is expected that base-metals miner First Quantum Minerals’ (FQM’s) Enterprise nickel mine will start operations later this year or in 2016, depending on nickel market conditions.

The Enterprise nickel mine development forms part of the Trident project, which also comprises the Sentinel copper mine development and is located about 150 km west of Solwezi, in north-west Zambia.

Its processing facility will share the Sentinel infrastructure and tailings will be discharged to the Sentinel tailings thickeners and tailings storage facility.

The Enterprise deposit has a total measured and indicated resource of 40.1-million tonnes, grading 1.07% nickel, and proven and probable reserves of 32.7-million tonnes, grading 1.10% nickel.

The planned four-million-tonne-a-year Enterprise operation has capacity to produce 38 000 t/y of nickel on average, with scope to increase to 60 000 t/y.

Creamer Media’s Research Channel Africa in August reported that Enterprise was granted environmental approval in September 2014 and that preparatory works for future mining had started.

“The Enterprise plant is under construction and concrete works are more than 95% complete,” Research Channel Africa further states. The plant can be commissioned using Sentinel copper ore, before the decision is made to proceed with commercial mining at the Enterprise pit.

Operational Plan
According to FQM, ores from Enterprise will be transported to the Sentinel processing facility, where they will be treated in a semiautogenous grinding, ball milling circuit. This is followed by flotation with a treatment rate of up to four-million tonnes a year.

A dedicated primary crusher, a crushed ore stockpile and a conveying system will be provided for the Enterprise ores; and crushed ore will be milled and the ground product floated in a circuit comprising talc prefloat, nickel rougher flotation and two stages of cleaning.

The talc prefloat will be operated without reagent addition to produce a talc concentrate containing very little nickel, which will be discarded as final tailings.

Final concentrate at a grade of between 24% and 30% nickel will be thickened and filtered in a dedicated concentrate handling facility.

The Enterprise project is being designed to produce an average of 38 000 t/y of nickel in concentrate with scope to increase to 60 000 t, when nickel market conditions allow.

The Enterprise circuit will also be able to process additional copper ore from Sentinel in the periods when it is not being used to process nickel.