Cobalt Blue has identified new economic opportunities to enhance its Halls Creek project in Western Australia, including value engineering and exploration activity.
Cobalt Blue recently released a scoping study for Halls Creek, which outlined strong economics such as a 10.5-year project life and a pre-tax NPV8 (net present value discounted by eight per cent) of $172 million.
Now, the company is building off these results by evaluating the potential inclusion of silver at the Onedin deposit and cobalt at the Sandiego deposit.
Silver is currently excluded from Hall Creek’s Stage 1, which will see Onedin ore will be mined using open-cut methods and processed via heap leaching to produce copper cathode and zinc sulphate monohydrate.
However, Cobalt Blue believes potential silver recovery from Onedin could deliver additional revenue and lift project margins.
The company’s future metallurgical testwork for Stage 1 will now target silver recovery from Onedin.
Cobalt Blue has also found including cobalt in Sandiego’s future mineral resource estimates will support its proposed Kwinana cobalt refinery in WA, which is set to become the country’s first cobalt refinery, producing high-quality, battery-grade cobalt sulphate for the global battery materials supply chain.
The inclusion is expected to further strengthen the cost profile of Hall Creek’s Stage 2, which will see Sandiego ore mined by underground methods and treated via a flotation plant to produce separate copper and zinc concentrates.
“The upside opportunities presented … offer immense value-add to the core project outlined in the recent scoping study,” Cobalt Blue chief executive officer Andrew Tong said.
“(Cobalt Blue) has the right team to unlock silver and cobalt credits, potential driving major uplifts in cashflow and return on installed plant. Resource growth, and associated project life could be realised through the drill-ready exploration opportunities.”
Cobalt Blue is also considering developing a centralised processing hub that can accept material from nearby satellite deposits to increase Halls Creek’s mine life, throughput and decrease the project’s capital intensity.
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