Poseidon Nickel planned to make a final investment decision (FID) regarding its Black Swan restart in early July, but this has been delayed by several factors.
The company has multiple objectives still to tick off before an FID can be made, including further metallurgical testwork and the finalisation of offtake and debt financing work streams.
Poseidon has also been affected by several external happenings, including a tight WA labour market, the lack of fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) accommodation in Kalgoorlie and Western Power advising that grid power wouldn’t be available on site until late-2024.
“The offtake and project debt financing work streams continue to progress well, together with obtaining all the necessary approvals for the Black Swan restart,” Poseidon managing director and chief executive officer Peter Harold said.
“While the team has made solid progress advancing the project towards the restart, we have been advised that grid power will not be available at site until late 2024. In addition, we have determined from the recent confirmatory drilling and updated resource model that further metallurgical testwork is required to confirm the recoveries used in the feasibility study for the disseminated open pit ore.”
Harold also flagged headwinds associated with continued commodity and equity market volatility, but he expects this to abate in 2024 and provide a more favourable environment for Black Swan’s development.
“We will constantly monitor the project-related factors and together with external market conditions, our primary aim remains to restart Black Swan as soon as it is feasible to do so,” Harold said.
“In the meantime, we will continue to add value for shareholders by completing the Black Swan expansion project pre-feasibility study and undertake further exploration drilling at both Black Swan and Lake Johnston targeting high-grade mineralisation.”
A recent 112-hole reverse circulation (RC) drill program covering 10,845m underpinned a Black Swan resource update in early-June. Measured and indicated nickel resources increased 48 per cent compared with a resource update in July 2022, while average nickel grade increased 14 per cent.
The updated Black Swan disseminated mineral resource estimate (MRE) contains 26.3 million tonnes at 0.72 per cent nickel (previously 0.63 per cent) for 189,000 tonnes of nickel.
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