Ardea Resources Confirms Scandium and REE at Kalpini Nickel Project

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Ardea Resources (ASX: ARL) recently completed re-assaying of historic drill pulps from the company’s Kalpini nickel project in Western Australia.

Ardea Resources reported the re-assays have confirmed very high-grade historical nickel-cobalt intercepts and identified previously undocumented but significant scandium credits.

Additionally, notable Rare Earth Element (REE) and Rare Metal (RM) grades were indicated within the historic nickel-cobalt laterite mineralisation, including:

WERC0371
12 metres at 1.7 per cent nickel, 0.151 per cent cobalt, 28 grams per tonne scandium from 20m with;

0.244 per cent Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO), includes neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce); and

1.32 per cent Total Rare Metal Oxide (TRMO), includes titanium (Ti), yttrium (Y), zircon (Zr), niobium (Nb), hafnium (Hf), tantalum (Ta) and tungsten (W).

VKPRC0112
4m at 1.66 per cent nickel, 0.102 per cent cobalt, 40g/t scandium from 29m with;

0.1297 per cent TREO; and

0.7193 per cent TRMO.

“The Kalpini drill pulp re-assay was a major undertaking for Ardea in 2021, with the principal objective to validate historic resource drilling and obtain scandium assays for the current re-estimation of the full Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE),” Ardea Resources managing director Andrew Penkethman said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“The importance of cobalt as a significant revenue contributor for the KNP was validated in the 2018 PFS.

“Significantly, the cobalt revenue credit reduced the then estimated C1 operating cost from US$5.59 per pound to US$0.42 per pound.

“If scandium and now REEs can be configured in the flowsheeet as additional revenue contributors, there are significant improvements to the already robust KNP financial metrics.

“These studies are all subject to the current Ardea-ALS bench-scale metallurgical R&D, where material with REE and RM credits are targeted in R&D programs.

“These R&D programs for Ardea are specifically targeting Critical Minerals, as supply chain security is more important than ever as the World continues the transition to a low carbon future.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Email: ardea@ardearesources.com.au

 

Web: www.ardearesources.com.au