KALGOORLIE (miningweekly.com) – Mining major BHP said on Wednesday that a furnace rebuild at its Kalgoorlie nickel smelter would be fundamental to the future of the Nickel West operations.
Speaking at the Diggers and Dealers conference, BHP Nickel West asset president Jessica Farrell said that to scale operations at Nickel West, the company would not only need to develop new mines, but would have to explore ways to unlock more nickel from its existing assets.
“Our planned furnace rebuild at the Kalgoorlie nickel smelter is fundamental to our future. It provides an opportunity to sustain our business, but also our ability to unlock further resource with potential to increase capacity and recovery could create a pathway for additional feed sources.
“These investments take a lot of planning and preparation and we're well advanced in the project. It continues, as you would expect, in line with our capital allocation framework in BHP.”
Farrell said that while this work continues, Nickel West was also progressing extensive debottlenecking work, with opportunities to increase capacity at its concentrators being investigated, including potentially increasing milling capacity and introducing modern flotation technology.