Canada Nickel announces additional positive metallurgy at Crawford

Canada Nickel Company Inc. is announcing what it calls excellent results from its latest metallurgical testing on its 100% owned Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Sulphide project.

“The 52% recovery from a higher-grade core sample marks another excellent step forward for the Crawford project. Half of the recovered nickel is in a high grade concentrate at 37%; this result and other testwork demonstrates our ability to deliver 40-50% of the recovered nickel into a 35% nickel concentrate, which would be the highest grade nickel sulphide concentrate in the world, according to Wood Mackenzie. The standard grade concentrate delivered concentrate grade of 13%, in line with typical grades for most nickel sulphide projects. Given the wide range of mineralogy in these types of deposits, the next phases of work will focus on continued flowsheet optimization and developing a broad base of test samples.” said Mark Selby, Chair & CEO.

The locked cycle test (“LCT”) conducted at XPS Expert Process Solutions, a Glencore Company (“XPS”) was the third successful LCT. The results of the first two LCTs were previously announced in Canada Nickel press release dated December 23, 2020. This first phase of metallurgical testing was designed to confirm initial flowsheet design, which uses a typical nickel sulphide ultramafic flowsheet of two stages of grind-deslime-float with magnetic separation to support recovery of magnetic minerals. Subsequent testing during 2021 will continue to optimize various flowsheet parameters towards a final flowsheet for the feasibility study expected by year-end 2021.

The Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Sulphide Project is located in the heart of the prolific Timmins-Cochrane mining camp in Ontario, Canada, and is adjacent to well-established, major infrastructure associated with over 100 years of regional mining activity. Canada Nickel has launched wholly-owned NetZero Metals Inc. with the aim to develop zero-carbon production of nickel, cobalt, and iron at the Crawford Project.

The Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Sulphide Project is expected to produce among the highest-grade nickel sulphide concentrates in the world, providing maximum flexibility for potential partners and offtake parties, including the battery and stainless steel markets.

Table 1 – Metallurgy Test Results on Higher-Grade Core (HGC) sample for the Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Sulphide Project, Ontario

Cobalt recovery was approximately 35% for this locked cycle test from sample consisting of heazlewoodite and pentlandite. PGM assays are pending.

Fe and MgO content of the High Grade concentrate was 18% and 7% respectively; Fe and MgO content of the Standard Grade concentrate was 27% and 19%.

Magnetite recovery was not optimized in this test but still yielded 44% Fe recovery to a 45% Fe concentrate.

 

 

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