PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Vanadium and oil shale developer QEM on Wednesday announced the commissioning of its pilot plant at the headquarters of HRL Technology Group.
The vanadium and oil shale pilot plant is scheduled to be operational for a period of six months, and has been designed and developed to validate QEM’s proprietary extraction process, ahead of a commercial demonstration plant.
QEM’s primary focus is extracting vanadium and oil shale, but the company will also integrate metallurgy work to investigate high purity alumina extraction potential, after a recent resource estimate at its Julia Creek project, in Queensland, identified a material volume of aluminium.
MD Gavin Loyden said on Wednesday that the commissioning of the pilot plant represented the continued positive progression of the Julia Creek project, as well as the latent potential that the company could capture.
“I am delighted we have reached this major milestone in the development of the Julia Creek project. We are now well positioned to unlock value for our shareholders as we commence our prefeasibility studies.
“Crucially, the potential high purity alumina upside recently identified will be incorporated into our original bench scale test work programme schedule cost-effectively and without timing delays to the core of our programme.”