West Musgrave Nickel Project PFS

Scope of Work - Feasibility Study

OZ Minerals Limited (OZ Minerals) is studying the development of the West Musgrave Project located in Western Australia, approximately 1300 km northeast of Perth, near the border with South Australia and Northern Territory. OZ Minerals engaged GR Engineering to undertake the Prefeasibility Study and enhanced PFS for the design and construction of a processing facility and associated infrastructure required for the project.

The future project will consist of two large open cut mines and a process plant utilising dry grinding and flotation processing techniques to produce separate nickel and copper concentrates for sale to downstream processing facilities. The processing facility capacity was studied at both 10 Mtpa and 12 Mtpa of ROM ore with an average grade of 0.33% nickel and 0.36% copper to produce an approximately 220 ktpa of nickel concentrate and 110 ktpa of copper concentrate based on the 12 Mtpa throughput case.

The studies investigated the latest innovate equipment and processes for the project which now includes:

  • Dry Grinding of the ore to 165 microns utilising the Loesche Vertical Roller Mill (VRM). This will be the first time this technology has been utilised in the mineral industry in Australia.
  • Woodgrove flotation technology is proposed for the bulk flotation circuit utilising their Direct Flotation Reactor (DFR) technology.  This technology reduces plant foot print and decreases operating cost by reducing power requirement and flotation reagent consumptions.
  • Bulk Separation Flotation circuit to allow for a coarse primary grinding size of 165 microns leading to lower power requirements.
  • Renewable power generation for the project is investigating the use of both wind and solar power generation to achieve high renewable power penetration for the project.

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Summary

  • Client OZ Minerals Limited (ASX: OZL)
  • Award Date August 2018
  • Completion Date October 2020
  • Location Musgrave Province of Western Australia
  • Project Manager Jon Errey
  • Process Manager Bill Gosling 
  • Project Type Greenfields, prefeasibility study