"In addition, it owns a mill and a cobalt refinery about 25 km from its Keeley-Frontier project. The Yukon refinery is one of only four facilities in Canada that is environmentally permitted to treat and process ore containing arsenic, and the only one in North America with no set limits on processing or storing arsenic from feeds.
"Mell notes that while First Cobalt’s existing assets include almost half of the historic mining properties in the Cobalt camp of Ontario, where its exploration team has confirmed fifteen targets there already, it’s at an earlier stage and the company still has a lot more work to do in order to understand the geology and structural controls of a camp that primarily mined high-grade silver underground. The Ontario properties also contain five elements — silver, cobalt, nickel, bismuth and arsenic — making it more complex, Mell says, adding that the company probably won’t have its first resource estimate out until sometime in 2019.
[Ash: the five element mix is likely why the refinery enjoys a generous arsenic treatment permit]
"If all goes according to plan and Iron Creek ever becomes a mine, it would probably cost about US$125 per tonne to ship concentrate by rail from Idaho to its refinery in Ontario, Mell estimates. “The freight cost on a tonne of copper-cobalt concentrate is quite manageable,” he says.
"In the meantime, First Cobalt is evaluating what it would cost to re-commission its refinery and expects to have the results of some of its early engineering studies in the next few months.
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Which partially answers seuss' questions in the thread above.
It is difficult (impossible) to address refinery design and rebuild without knowing exactly the composition of the ore to be processed.
Ash
FCC Price at posting:
$1.09 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
