The Prospector News

Gwen Preston – “Mailbox: Premium Nickel”

You have opened a direct link to the current edition PDF

Open PDF Close
Uncategorized

Share this news article

Gwen Preston – “Mailbox: Premium Nickel”

 

 

 

 

 

I had a question about your recent Premium Nickel comments. The topic is the prospect of only a 62% recovery of nickel in the ore. Assuming the downhole EM’s do in fact turn out decent tonnage, is the 62% recovery a deal killer? Also: any thoughts on how to assess the probability that they can meaningfully improve that number?

Reader CL

 

62% recovery is not ideal, to be sure. Is it a deal breaker? No. If the EM plates indeed represent massive sulphide deposits of good grade, then the scale of what’s at hand could handle 62% recovery.

 

But improvements would be lovely, of course.

 

The standard flowsheet they tested generated two tailings streams – one high volume/low sulphur and one low volume/high sulphur – and two concentrates (copper and nickel-cobalt). Copper recoveries are great. Nickel is only 62%. To improve that they’re testing different grind sizes. They are also seeing if there’s a way to second-process the low volume/high sulphur tailings, as that’s where the unrecovered nickel ends up. For example, would some kind of hydrometallurgical process liberate more nickel from the tailings?

 

It’s good it’s the low-volume tailings that would potentially need another round of work. Lower volume is less capital and operating expense.

 

Odds of success? I think it’s likely they will find a way to pull a good chunk (perhaps half?) of the remnant nickel from the tailings. The question will then be the cost and complexity of adding that step to the process plant. Since it’s hydromet (basic chemistry) of low volumes and not high-pressure chemistry of high volumes, costs are not likely going to be dramatic.

 

This is 20,000-foot arm waving at this point, based on general principles. Until PNRL says more about the met processes they’re testing, I can’t really say more!

 

But I do think (1) the targets here are big enough, and the precedents suggest they could be rich enough, to very much make 62% recovery work, even if higher recoveries would be better and (2) there is a good chance PNRL will find an economic way to improve from 62%.

 

Courtesy of Resource Maven

 

Posted July 18, 2023

Share this news article

MORE or "UNCATEGORIZED"


IMPACT Silver Announces Closing of C$16.0 Million Bought Deal LIFE Private Placement

IMPACT Silver Corp. (TSX-V: IPT) (OTCQB: ISVLF) (FSE: IKL) is ple... READ MORE

September 17, 2025

Minera Alamos Announces Completion of C$135 Million Bought Deal Offering

Minera Alamos Inc. (TSX-V: MAI) is pleased to report that the Com... READ MORE

September 17, 2025

Tier One Silver Closes $6.5 Million Oversubscribed Equity Financing

Tier One Silver Inc. (TSX-V: TSLV) (OTCQB: TSLVF) is pleased to announce... READ MORE

September 17, 2025

Pine Ridge Uranium Project Delivers Excellent Initial Drill Results

Snow Lake Resources Ltd., d/b/a Snow Lake Energy (NASDAQ: LITM) a... READ MORE

September 17, 2025

Hercules Metals Intersects 81 m of 1.5% Copper Within 346 m of 0.66% Copper in First 2025 Drill Hole Completed at the Leviathan Porphyry System in Idaho

Strong hypogene enrichment intersected in first 220 m step-out; s... READ MORE

September 17, 2025

Copyright 2025 The Prospector News