PERTH (miningweekly.com) – A prefeasibility study (PFS) into the Goonarrie nickel/cobalt project, in Western Australia, has estimated that a one-million-tonne-a-year operation would require a capital investment of A$599-million.
ASX-listed Ardea Resources reported that the project was expected to deliver some 5 500 t/y of cobalt sulphate and 41 500 t/y of nickel sulphate over a mine life of 25 years.
Based on the one-million-tonne-a-year base case scenario, the Goonarrie project would have a post-tax net present value of A$1.04-billion and an internal rate of return of 25%, with C1 cash costs estimated at $0.42/lb nickel metal, after cobalt credits.
“The PFS has delivered outstanding results for Ardea. It demonstrates the strong financial returns of the Goonarrie nickel/cobalt project based on current commodity prices and with demand for both nickel and cobalt sulphate continuing to grow, the potential returns to our investors could be much higher,” said Ardea chairperson Katina Law.
“The large resource, simple leach kinetics of the Goonarrie ore and exploration potential of the broader area provide significant opportunity to increase the scale of production and as such, Ardea will assess opportunities to further enhance the project economics concurrently with the definitive feasibility study (DFS).”
Work on a DFS was now under way, and a development decision on the Goonarrie project is expected towards late 2019.