Ravensthorpe future still unclear despite support

摘要

Will BHP Billiton's Ravensthorpe nickel laterite operation in Western Australia finally make the grade? That was the question occupying the minds of nickel watchers last month after the WA State Government agreed to tip 18.4 dollars million into the long-delayed project as infrastructure supports.The political backing has once again raised hopes for Ravensthorpe, initially promoted in the 1990s laterute boom by tiddler Comet Resources as a readily "upgradable" deposit. New owner BHP Billiton insists that this "beneficiation" of Ravensthorpe ore to a 2 percent nickel feed is feasible, but the mining giant is now trialling a novel processing technique called atmospheric leaching (AL) to tweak the project's economics. The idea is that BHP Billiton would use conventional pressure acid leaching (PAL) to process the bulk of the upgraded ore, supplemented by AL on material that would otherwise be rejected.