Ardea starts nickel and cobalt pilot trial

Australian metals developer Ardea Resources will start a pilot plant trial to produce nickel and cobalt sulphate samples from its Goongarrie project in Western Australia, it said.

The trial will focus on 7.5t of representative mineralisation in what the company describes as "the largest laboratory-scale autoclave in the southern hemisphere".

The objective of the pilot is to provide process design and engineering data for the project flowsheet and to produce commercial samples for potential customers and strategic partners.

Ardea will produce nickel and cobalt sulphate samples under operating conditions that mimic commercial operations and provide marketing samples "for eager battery market end-users", chairman Katina Law said.

Goongarrie is part of the much larger Kalgoorlie Nickel Project, which is said to contain one of the largest cobalt resources outside the Democratic Republic of Congo. A pre-feasibility study has been completed on Goongarrie, showing that the project can be mined at a base case rate of 1mn t/yr or at a higher rate of 1.5mn t/yr.

The base case estimates production of 5,500 t/yr of cobalt sulphate (1,180 t/yr cobalt metal) and 41,500 t/yr of nickel sulphate (9,300 t/yr nickel metal) over a period of 25 years. A definitive feasibility study is under way.