Lunnon Metals has achieved palladium recoveries at an average of 91.9 percent and produced nickel concentrate grading up to 8.61 grams per tonne platinum and palladium from the Baker deposit, offering a potential by-product opportunity to add to its Kambalda Nickel Project in the famed mining region of Western Australia.
The ongoing metallurgical test program has produced similarly high results from the other deposits across its Kambalda operations.
It has produced nickel recoveries of 85.2 per cent at Warren and 88.9 per cent from the surface of 85H at the foster mine, where Lunnon holds a 1.95Mt @ 2.9% Ni resource for 57,000 contained tonnes of nickel.
Results demonstrate production of a high-quality nickel concentrate with recoveries aligned with previous results, recording high copper, cobalt, palladium, and platinum credits with low levels of arsenic.
Lunnon Managing Director Ed Ainscough said the company was focusing its technical studies on the contained tonnage of nickel metal available from the existing workings at the Foster mine.
Our methodical approach to de-risking and permitting our mineral inventory has served us well at the nearby Baker deposit and we are confident that integrating Foster with the excellent physical and financial results from the recent Baker PFS will open up considerable value and opportunity,” Mr Ainscough said.
“These testwork results confirm that Foster’s Mineral Resources have the capability to deliver a premium nickel concentrate along with the added bonus of the potential for value to be realised from the palladium and platinum present in the nickel mineralisation across the KNP, both at Baker and Foster,” he added.
The nickel mines sitting in Lunnon’s Kambalda holdings once provided significant feed to the Kambalda concentrator, with Foster delivering 2.37 million tonnes of ore grading at 2.57 per cent for 61,129 tonnes of contained nickel.
Lunnon expect to continue to grow its resource at Foster and at the Silver Lake Shaft mine, once the first and only operational mine at Kambalda, which shown its lustre for new tonnage after reassays showed grades reaching up to 10.23 per cent.
Economic and technical studies to exploit the Foster resource are now underway, including metallurgy, geotechnical studies, mine design, capital estimations and initial discussions with purchase partners as Lunnon look towards the potential of an updated PFS and production from a new chapter at Kambalda.