Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Nickel miner Poseidon Nickel on Wednesday told shareholders that it was investigating options for the toll treatment of the Mt Windarra ore, which could deliver production of between 350 000 t/y and 700 000 t/y over the first two years of operation.
Poseidon had previously announced it was working to reduce the capital cost of the A$197-million Western Australia-based mine, which incorporates the existing brownfield Mt Windarra underground mine, the nearby greenfield Cerberus underground mine, a nickel sulphide concentrator plant and a retreatment plant.
The project had initially been scheduled to produce 9 600 t/y of nickel in concentrate and 45 000 oz of gold during the first three years of production from a 4.36-million-tonne gold tailings reserve.
If finalised, the third-party toll treatment agreement would allow the company to avoid the high capital expenditure of a new plant.
“The company already has a vast majority of infrastructure on the Windarra site necessary to restart the mine, including adequate power, water, accommodation and mobile capital equipment with only relatively minor additional infrastructure required,” Poseidon said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the decline to the orebodies had also been largely refurbished, with the completion currently estimated to take between three and four months, after which commercial production could start.
The possibility of gold production at the site was also still being investigated, with Poseidon saying that the reprocessing of the gold stockpiles would be contingent on nickel ore activities.
Poseidon’s share trading remained suspended on Wednesday, as it waited to announce the outcome of a proposed capital raising.