Chalice Mining has provided an update on metallurgical test work for its Gonneville nickel-copper-platinum group elements (PGEs) project in Western Australia.
The company said it received “excellent results” from recent bench-scale hydrometallurgical test work, confirming Gonneville intermediate products as highly suitable for hydrometallurgical ‘midstream’ processing.
Chalice is investigating strategic funding alternatives and partnership models for critical mineral processing operations.
The company said flowsheet development work continues to evolve following the initial scoping study and several flowsheet staging options are being considered to reduce capital cost and project risk.
A bulk flotation flowsheet configuration has the potential to further improve overall metallurgical recoveries and payabilities compared with the sequential flotation configuration assumed in the recent scoping study.
Variability in flotation recovery is to be assessed through the geo-metallurgical evaluation program currently underway.
This is expected to improve overall metallurgical recoveries and concentrate quality by refining the mine plan and scheduling to target higher grade, higher recovery domains of the resource in its early years.
Nickel, cobalt and palladium flotation recoveries are sensitive to grade, causing Chalice to begin modelling of staged, high-grade open-pit starter cases, adopting a higher cut-off grade with resultant higher metallurgical recoveries.
Chalice has commenced the pre-feasibility study (PFS) for the project, targeted for completion in mid-2025.
The PFS will assess several development cases, including additional staged, high-grade starter cases beyond those scoped in the recent scoping study.
The Gonneville resource includes a mix of free-dig oxide mineralisation as well as transitional and hypogene sulphide mineralisation, which are processed using two different processing flowsheets.
The initial focus of the PFS is to optimise the sulphide flowsheet, which currently includes crushing and grinding followed by flotation to produce two concentrates: a copper-palladium-platinum-gold concentrate and a nickel-iron-cobalt-palladium-platinum intermediate concentrate.
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