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- Cobalt Blue Holdings (COB) commences underground development at Pyrite Hill, located within the Broken Hill project in NSW, after establishing its pilot plant and completed the first blast
- The company reported around 3500-4000 tonnes of ore will be mined from Pyrite Hill to support 20 weeks of continuous operation of the demonstration plant
- Milling and concentrator equipment is being commissioned at Broken Hill, ahead of relocating the concentrate to the mine site, with the first ore concentration on target for delivery in late April
- The activities at the Plant aligned with Cobalt’s market strategy to be an integrated refinery delivering an intermediate mixed hydrogen product (MHP)
- COB shares are up 11.5 per cent, trading at 87 cents
Cobalt Blue Holdings (COB) has commenced underground development at Pyrite Hill, located within the Broken Hill project in NSW, after successfully establishing its pilot plant and completed its first blast.
The company reported around 3500-4000 tonnes of ore will be mined from Pyrite Hill to support 20 weeks of continuous operation of the demonstration plant.
Two underground development drives will provide access laterally to the cobalt-pyrite mineral resource and allow representative samples to be obtained, which is important to ensure that unbiased engineering data is generated for the BHCP feasibility study.
Site establishment works have been completed and excavation of the box cut is well advanced with installation of the decline portal to commence shortly.
The decline will extend approximately 80 metres, and intersect with the ore body around 40 metres below surface.
“These large-scale demonstration plant cobalt samples are a game changer for COB, providing operating proof for project equity/debt funders and simultaneously providing high quality production scale samples for commercial partners,” said Cobalt CEO Joe Kaderavek.
The demonstration plant is comprised of two activities. Firstly, mined ore will be crushed, milled and treated to produce a cobalt-pyrite concentrate at the mine site. Secondly, the concentrate will then be trucked to the processing plant in Broken Hill for extraction and recovery of cobalt as mixed hydroxide precipitate and/or cobalt sulphate.
Milling and concentrator equipment is being commissioned at Broken Hill, ahead of relocating the concentrate to the mine site, with the first ore concentration on target for delivery in late April.
Cobalt has outlined these activities to align with its market strategy to be an integrated refinery delivering an intermediate mixed hydrogen product (MHP), which can be further refined into battery grade cobalt sulphate, participating in the strong growth of the lithium-ion battery market.
COB shares were up 11.5 per cent, trading at 87 cents as of 11:01 am AEDT.
