Ardea makes nickel cobalt processing breakthrough

Ardea Resources has made a processing breakthrough with bench-scale metallurgical test work on ore samples from the company’s proposed Kalgoorlie nickel project Goongarrie Hub in the Goldfields region of WA. Ardea’s new lab results suggest the company could process an additional 200,000 tonnes of feed grading 1 per cent nickel per annum by matching the project’s various mineralisation styles to its proposed processing circuit.

Ardea’s processing improvement involves a simple wet screen separation of ore from the project into two components differing in particle size. From a bulk sample grading 0.8 per cent nickel, the test work generated 23 per cent fine material assaying 1.2 per cent nickel and 77 per cent oversize material assaying 0.6 per cent nickel.

The fines were found to represent potentially 200,000 tonnes of minimal-cost additional plant feed to the atmospheric leach competent of the processing circuit. It was also determined the coarser material could be used to replace imported limestone as a neutraliser to its acid-based process, representing both a cost saving by reducing consumable imports and transport-related carbon emissions.

The Feasibility Study for the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project - Goongarrie Hub has been focussing on the metallurgy of Material Types to allow the various mineralisation styles to be specifically matched to the High Pressure Acid Leach, Atmospheric Leach and Mineralised Neutraliser circuits.

For the Mineralised Neutraliser circuit, the separation of mineralised Serpentine Goethite clay from Magnesite Neutraliser by simple low-cost screening is a significant processing breakthrough.

The company sees its latest processing development as a major refinement and upgrade to the project’s flowsheet. An Australian provisional patent application covering the process has been filed as of November 11.

The work is part of a larger pre-feasibility study aimed at producing nickel and cobalt products for the lithium-ion battery sector using material sourced from the Goongarrie component of the company’s world-class resource of 830 million tonnes going 0.71 per cent nickel and 0.05 per cent cobalt.

The company believes its proposed operation contains the largest nickel-cobalt asset in the developed world. According to the Geological Survey of WA, when it comes to contained nickel, Ardea’s project is number one in WA with 5.8 million tonnes of contained nickel – surpassing BHP’s renowned 3.7-million-tonne Mt Keith operation by over 2 million tonnes.

Earlier this year, Ardea declared the Goongarrie Hub component of the project housed a mineral resource estimate of 561 million tonnes at 0.68 per cent nickel and 0.044 per cent cobalt. It also contains a high-grade component of 78.3 million tonnes going 1.00 per cent nickel and 0.069 per cent cobalt for 784,000 tonnes of nickel and 54,300 tonnes of cobalt contained.

The company plans to process its ore using a pair of 1.5-million-tonne-per-annum high-pressure acid leach autoclaves combined with a 0.5-million-tonne-per-annum atmospheric leach circuit to initially deliver a mixed hydroxide precipitate that will eventually supply the lithium-ion battery sector once the site is operational.

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