Interesting announcement on NIC today.
They are going to supply limonite Ore to a HPAL plant in indonesia. The Limonite ore is expected to have a grade of 1% nickel as per the companies announcement, much lower than the New Cal Ore QPM will import. Cobalt grades are also significantly less than the 0.17-0.18 expected from QPMs New Cal ore.
Tsingshan are leading the consortium looking to build that plant.
Theres a lot of talk about downstream processing in Australia and becoming less of a, for lack of a better term, 'banana republic'. This really plays into that narrative. Importing high grade ore to process on Australian shores using tech developed right here in Oz. The NC ore can open up a lot of opportunities down the line. It'll pay for the plant, turn a handsome profit, and because the CAPEX will have been invested and the location in Townsville, where the government is currently financially supporting dredging of the port for larger ships, the opportunity exists for a multi-generational operation that uses tech developed right here in our own backyard.
