JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – An in-house estimate has found that the Kun-Manie nickel/copper sulphide project, in Russia’s Far East, would be among the top ten lowest-cost nickel operations globally, owner Amur Minerals reported on Wednesday.
Based on mining a potential 73-million tonnes of ore, containing 400 000 t of metallurgically recovered nickel, the life-of-mine C1 cash cost for nickel will range from $2.61/lb to $2.77/lb, depending on which production option – an owner-built and operated low-grade matte facility or a contract toll smelting scenario – Amur opts for.
The C1 cost projections include all projected operating costs and operational considerations from the mine face to the sale of a final product and also take into account mine dilution, metallurgical recoveries at the mine and smelters, truck and rail freight.
The projected costs are lower than ferronickel and nickel pig iron operations and rank between fourth and seventh in a group of 16 nickel sulphide producers, as reported by the CRU in April, Amur said in a statement issued by the Regulatory News Service of the London exchange.
“Comparison of these newly defined costs indicates that Kun-Manie could be a low cost competitor within the nickel industry ranking in the lowest ten producers by cost and, potentially, even as low as fourth. Ranging from $5 750 to $6 100 per nickel tonne, we are well below the CRU projected average production cost of $10 000 per tonne,” commented Amur CEO Robin Young.
He added that the Kun-Manie was also one of only a small number of high-grade nickel projects, pointing out that there were about ten projects with a nickel resource of more than 1.2-million tonnes. Of these, only two had grades of more than Kun-Manie’s average of 0.75% nickel while the remaining six have average grades below Amur’s 0.4% cutoff grade.
“We feel well positioned in the new, emerging nickel-demanding electronic vehicle market,” Young said.
Amur plans to use a combination of openpit and underground mining methods to mine the Kun-Manie operation.