Alliance Nickel has begun vat leach test-work on a bulk ore sample from its wholly owned NiWest Nickel-Cobalt Project in Australia as part of efforts to reduce capital costs.
Approximately 2 tonnes of representative ore has been shipped to an overseas facility for testing.
The program will assess vat leaching as an alternative to the heap leaching process set out in the project’s 2024 Definitive Feasibility Study.
According to Alliance Nickel, heap leaching accounts for a significant share of capital costs in the study, particularly through water infrastructure, which represents approximately A$310 million ($214 million).
Analysis to date indicates that replacing heap leaching with vat leaching could enable sufficient water to be sourced from the local Mt Kilkenny tenement, potentially lowering capital expenditure on water infrastructure.
Vat leaching may also provide metallurgical benefits, including improved solution distribution, faster leach kinetics and shorter leach cycle times.
The test-work is therefore expected to show whether vat leaching can support a lower-cost development pathway for NiWest while maintaining process performance.
Alliance Nickel said the work forms part of broader efforts to optimise the project’s capital intensity and evaluate alternative processing options.
Results from the bulk-sample program will help inform future project planning and any potential updates to the feasibility-study design.
The company has not specified a timeline for completion, and the test-work is being conducted overseas to evaluate the vat leach concept at bulk scale.
The company said the test-work will compare vat leaching with the heap-leaching assumptions used in the 2024 study. Read more...
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