PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Minerals developer Heron Resources was considering a step-change at its Kalgoorlie nickel project, following a scoping study for a smaller-scale plant.
Previous feasibility studies for the project have considered a 2.5-million-tonne-a-year- and a 3.75-million-tonne-a-year project, with capital costs estimated at A$2.1-billion and A$2.8-billion respectively, to deliver 22 200 t/y and 36 700 t/y of nickel.
Both of the scoping studies, which were conducted in 2009 and 2010, respectively, only accessed ore from four of the 15 Kalgoorlie deposits, and concluded that the project would include atmospheric leaching.
Heron said on Tuesday that the company had undertaken the scoping study to review sulphuric acid-based hydrometallurgical testwork on the Kalgoorlie ore types, with initial bench-scale testwork on samples proving positive.
The new scoping study estimated that the one-million-tonne-a-year operation would require a capital investment of some A$356-million to deliver some 10 000 t/y of nickel, with a life-of-mine of some 22 years.
Heron would now undertake further feasibility work on the Kalgoorlie nickel project, with the aim of up-scaling the current study from 10 000 t/y to 20 000 t/y production, to assess the impact on the economies of scale.
The company would also conduct additional bench-scale acid leach tests on the full range of Kalgoorlie ore types to better characterise geometallurgical performance under atmospheric leaching conditions.
The feasibility programme would run in parallel with Heron’s merger with TriAusMin.