Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) managing director Dr Mike Jones brings Wally Graham up to speed of the latest progress at the company’s Lake Hope project on Day Three of the 2025 RIU Sydney Resources Roundup.
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) has reported a substantial and high-grade initial Measured Resource Estimate for the company’s Lake Hope High Purity Alumina (HPA) project, located east of Perth in Western Australia.
Impact Minerals reported a Measured Resource of 730,000 tonnes at 25.8 per cent alumina (Al2O3) for a contained 189,000 tonnes of alumina at the Lake Hope HPA project.
The company anticipates the Measured Resource to support the first 15 years or more of proposed HPA production from Lake Hope.
It is expected to underpin a Probable or Proven Reserve, subject to ongoing mining studies, test work, and economic studies to be completed as part of a Pre-Feasibility Study on Lake Hope.
Impact aims to bring Lake Hope into production to deliver low-cost, high-margin end products to a rapidly expanding global market.
Current prices for benchmark 4N HPA (99.99% Al2O3) and related products are more than US$20,000 per tonne.
Impact expects the Pre-Feasibility Study will be completed in Q1 2025 after the final reports from various contractors and consultants are received, which are expected in December and January.
“The new Mineral Resource Estimate will be incorporated, as per the JORC 2012 Code, into the Pre Feasibility Study for Lake Hope, which is nearing completion,” Impact Minerals said in its ASX announcement.
“Final reports from the engineering and design studies, mining schedules, and mining cost estimates, as well as from other contractors and consultants, are awaited.
“Some of these are expected in mid-December, and accordingly, the PFS is expected to be completed in Q1 2025.”
TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) reported making a breakthrough for producing High Purity Alumina (HPA) at the company’s Lake Hope project in Western Australia.
Impact Minerals announced the identification of a new proprietary metallurgical process for producing high-value HPA from the lake clays at the Lake Hope project.
The company explained the new process, called the LTL Process, has produced HPA at 99.99 per cent (4N) purity from the raw lake clay in only a few months of laboratory test work.
Impact claimed tis as one of the fastest times to produce HPA from raw materials reported by ASX-listed companies saying it attests to the relatively straightforward nature of the process.
The new process involves different reagents to those used in the Playa One Sulphate Process, which has also recently successfully produced 4N HPA, which Impact reported in February 2024.
Impact can earn an 80 per cent interest in Playa One Pty Limited, which owns the Lake Hope project, by completing a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) on the project which is currently in progress.
“Today we reveal a further exciting breakthrough for producing HPA from the unique mix of minerals that are present at Lake Hope, minerals which have allowed our new LTL Process to produce the benchmark 99.99 per cent pure HPA very quickly after starting the test work,” Impact Minerals managing director Dr Mike Jones said in the company’s ASX announcement.
“The LTL Process is simpler than the Sulphate Process that underpinned our recent Scoping Study and showed that at less than US$4,000 per tonne, Lake Hope may produce HPA at up to 50 per cent cheaper than our peers.
“We think that further work on the LTL Process could result in even lower operating and capital costs, and this would only further enhance the already impressive economics of the project, which has an NPV8 of well over $1 billion.
“We have now started further optimization studies for the LTL Process and will push forward with our Pre-Feasibility Study using both process routes for the time being to determine the best strategic choice for processing at the project.
“Given we can run all these tests in parallel for little extra cost, we are still on course to finish the PFS later this year and continue to look forward towards producing HPA from Lake Hope”.
TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) released, what it declared as being, “positive results” of a Scoping Study for the company’s Lake Hope high purity alumina (HPA) project in Western Australia.
Impact Minerals explained the Scoping Study had been carried out, “based on realistic production and capital expenditure estimates”.
The Lake Hope project contains a substantial alumina (Al2O3) resource, which the company believes could become a major global supplier of HPA due to the unique nature of the deposit that allows very cost-effective mining and processing.
By combining the Scoping Study results with other published data, Impact come to believe the Lake Hope project could be one of, if not the lowest-cost producer of HPA globally, possibly by a healthy margin of up to 50 per cent.
“This Scoping Study demonstrates the world-class potential of the Lake Hope project and supports what we first thought was possible when we came across it and the work already done by Roland Gotthard and the Playa One team,” Impact Minerals managing director Dr Mike Jones said in the company’s ASX announcement.
“If you are playing in the industrial minerals space, at least one of four things has to be true about your mine otherwise you will not make it through the market cycle: the deposit has to be either the biggest, have the highest grade, be the first to market or, preferably, be the lowest cost producer.
“The unique characteristics of the Lake Hope deposit, both in terms of mining and processing, look like they could possibly deliver HPA at the lowest cost globally by a significant margin.
“Even though we are only at the Scoping Study stage, with all its inherent uncertainties, the financial model demonstrates the world-class economics of the project, which has an NPV of more than $1 billion, very large operating margins and significant after-tax earnings of $174 million per year.
“The ability to deliver sub-US$4,000 per tonne HPA is an extraordinary competitive advantage that Impact will continue to leverage in the current Preliminary Feasibility Study, due for completion in 2024.”
TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE
