FPX Nickel (TSXV: FPX) has successfully completed pilot-scale hydrometallurgy test work at its nickel refinery by producing battery-grade nickel sulphate (NiSO4). The company is intent on building North America’s largest such refinery with the capacity to produce 32,000 tonnes of nickel in sulphate.
This accomplishment follows last year’s successful bench-scale test program. FPX’s work has been supported in part by a grant from Natural Resources Canada under the federal government’s Critical Minerals Research, Development and Demonstration program.
“The results of our hydrometallurgy refinery pilot plant test work confirm the technical advantages of awaruite nickel mineralization to produce battery-grade nickel sulphate, further demonstrating the opportunity to develop a more streamlined nickel supply chain entirely in Canada,” commented Andrew Osterloh, SVP projects and operations.
“Baptiste would represent an almost 50% increase to Canada’s current annual nickel production, all without adding to or displacing any of Canada’s nickel smelting or complex refinery capacity, thereby pioneering a uniquely low-cost, low-carbon link between mining and EV battery production,“ he said.
The pilot-scale tests used awaruite concentrate (60% nickel) as feed. The feed would be supplied by the Baptiste nickel-iron concentrator in central British Columbia. The concentrate would undergo an atmospheric leach followed by precipitation of cobalt, nickel sulphate, and nickel scavenging in the presence of ammonium sulphate. A copper concentrate would also be produced from the leach circuit.
The pilot plant had overall leach extractions of 99.3% for nickel and 97.9% for cobalt.
Using an assumed nickel price of $8.75 per pound, FPX produced a preliminary feasibility study last year for the Baptiste project that gave it an after-tax net present value (8% discount) of $2.01 billion and an internal rate of return of 18.6%.
The mine will have a life of 29 years with average annual nickel production of 132 million lb. The initial capex will be $2.18 billion followed by $763 million for expansion and sustaining costs of $1.18 billion.
