Corazon Mining Ltd (ASX:CZN) is set to begin detailed metallurgical test work on the Cobalt Ridge deposit within the Mount Gilmore Project located in New South Wales.
Cobalt Ridge hosts one of the highest-grade cobalt deposits in Australia.
The first phase metallurgical test work completed in March this year delivered highly positive results including simple flotation processes recovering 92.2% cobalt.
Brett Smith, managing director, commented: “It’s important for us at an early stage to fully appreciate the flexibility we have with respect to processing, plant design and product specification.
“While our desire is to produce cobalt for the rechargeable battery sector - which would be an end-point product - there maybe numerous opportunities along that processing path where benefits exist and other cobalt products can be delivered for sale.”
Mount Gilmore Project
The Mt Gilmore Project is located 35 kilometres from the major centre of Grafton in north-eastern New South Wales.
Corazon owns a 51% interest in Mt Gilmore and has an exclusive right to earn up to an 80% interest in the project.
The prospective 18 kilometre Mt Gilmore trend includes over 25 historic copper, gold, cobalt and iron workings, including significant shafts, adits and drives with high-grade copper and gold mineralisation.
Rock chip grades have assayed up to 26.8% copper and 9.2 g/t gold.
Five large-scale copper-gold targets that have been defined to date.
Corazon completed its maiden drill program at Mt Gilmore in December 2016, testing the continuity, position and extent of the cobalt-copper-gold mineralisation within the Cobalt Ridge prospect area.
The drilling validated historical mining and exploration results and confirmed the presence of multiple zones of sulphide mineralisation over a strike length of at least 300 metres.
The mineralisation remains open along strike and at depth.
Metallurgy program
Corazon has engaged industry-leading independent consultancy METS Engineering to complete detailed metallurgical test work on the Cobalt Ridge deposit.
The test work will investigate the methods required to produce a high-grade metal concentrate, suitable for outright sale or as a feedstock for downstream processing.
Proposed downstream processing studies will determine methods suitable for the production of quality cobalt salts for use in the rechargeable battery industry, or a high-quality metal for sale into the more traditional cobalt markets.
The metallurgical studies are expected to be completed over three months and will be followed by engineering and processing studies.
Initial simple flotation studies have yielded a recovery of 92.2% for cobalt, 89% for copper and 75.5% for gold, in a total concentrate with 11.1% mass recovery.
Analysis
The unique cobalt-copper-gold mineralisation at Cobalt Ridge has the potential to deliver a variety of saleable products.
Corazon believes this rare cobalt-dominant sulphide deposit has the potential to supply a quality cobalt product, suitable for use in lithium-ion batteries and the emerging rechargeable battery sector.
News flow from the project is set to continue with the drilling approval process underway set for commencement of drilling in August.
Core samples for metallurgical testing from the drilling are expected to be delivered to the laboratory in early September.
These new studies will also help determine the optimal size of the resource required at Cobalt Ridge.
One of the key positives of Mt Gilmore is that very little modern exploration has been undertaken.
Aside from small-scale historical copper-gold and iron mines, previous exploration has predominantly been restricted to general prospecting, mapping, rock-chip sampling, with drilling completed at only one of the targets.
With cobalt prices trading near US$60,000 per tonne, this is a fortuitous time for Corazon to be developing a new cobalt resource.