Re-assay of historic drill pulps from Ardea Resources’ (ASX:ARL) Kalpini Nickel Project in Western Australia has confirmed very high-grade historical nickel-cobalt intercepts and identified previously undocumented but significant scandium credits.
Additionally, significant Rare Earth Element (REE) and Rare Metal (RM) grades were indicated within the historic nickel-cobalt laterite mineralisation, including:
• WERC0371: 12m at 1.70% nickel, 0.151% cobalt, 28g/t scandium from 20m; with 0.244% Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) includes neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce); 1.320% Total Rare Metal Oxide (TRMO). Includes titanium (Ti), yttrium (Y), zircon (Zr), niobium (Nb), hafnium (Hf), tantalum (Ta) and tungsten (W)
• VKPRC0112: 4m at 1.66% nickel, 0.102% cobalt, 40g/t scandium from 29m; with 0.1297% TREO, 0.7193% TRM.
Subject to current bench-scale metallurgical test-work on Highway core material, REEs and RMs at Kalpini will be targeted to provide potential by-product credits as does cobalt and also potentially scandium.
The observed Kapini REE grades are around a tenth of the grade required for a standalone REE operation. As demonstrated for cobalt in the 2018 Goongarrie Pre-feasibility Study (PFS), with the aggressive autoclave hydrometallurgical metal dissolution, the rare earth and rare metals are expected to go into solution with the target nickel.
Ardea’s Managing Director, Andrew Penkethman, said the REE and RM recovery and quantifying its marginal cost is a key deliverable for the current Ardea-ALS metallurgical Research and Development (R&D).
“The Kalpini drill pulp re-assay was a major undertaking for Ardea in 2021, with the principal objective to validate historic resource drilling and obtain scandium assays for the current re-estimation of the full Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE),” Mr Penkethman said.
“The importance of cobalt as a significant revenue contributor for the KNP was validated in the 2018 PFS. Significantly, the cobalt revenue credit reduced the then estimated C1 operating cost from US$5.59/lb to US$0.42/lb.
“If scandium and now REEs can be configured in the flowsheeet as additional revenue contributors, there are significant improvements to the already robust KNP financial metrics.
“These studies are all subject to the current Ardea-ALS bench-scale metallurgical R&D, where material with REE and RM credits are targeted in R&D programmes.
These R&D programmes for Ardea are specifically targeting Critical Minerals, as supply chain security is more important than ever as the World continues the transition to a low carbon future.”
For further information please visit: https://ardearesources.com.au/
