EPA waives Poseidon Windarra assessment

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Andrew Forrest-led Poseidon Nickel has received news that its Windarra nickel project in Western Australia will not require formal assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Instead the environmental approval for the project is to be managed under Part V of the Environmental Protection Act of 1986.

Receipt of this conditional waiver means the company’s plans for the development of the Windarra nickel project remain on track.

The Poseidon said this meant it would be able to achieve all of the necessary mining and environmental approvals during the first quarter of 2012.

The EPA waiver for the project was first granted in 2008.

“Substantial changes to the project, most notably incorporation of mining activities at the Cerberus nickel deposit, meant that a re-application for a waiver was necessary,” Poseidon Nickel said in its ASX announcement.

“The process should now deliver a rapid assessment within the development time scales of the project.”

Poseidon Nickel claims the Windarra nickel project to be a higher-grade nickel sulphide deposit that has demonstrated high recovery levels through a standard nickel floatation concentrator.

The total current Mineral Resource is located at two positions approximately 10 kilometres apart and includes an existing brownfields mine at Mt Windarra and a new discovery at Cerberus.

 

Source: Company announcement

Poseidon said it is on track to complete a definitive feasibility study by the end of 2011.

The company is targeting initial concentrate production in 2013.

A concentrator plant is to be constructed at Mt Windarra, which the company expects to have a nameplate capacity of 700,000 tonnes of ore per annum.