Impact Minerals’ lodging of a mining lease application and associated miscellaneous licence for the Lake Hope High Purity Alumina Project is a step towards advancing the project to production.
The mining lease application was lodged for the West Lake resource, and the miscellaneous licence was lodged for mine infrastructure and a haulage road.
This helps define the work required to obtain the statutory approvals needed for the grant of the mining lease. A clear pathway to the grant of the mining lease has been established with two main focus areas going forward: firstly, a negotiation protocol for land access and cultural heritage agreements with the Ngadju peoples, which is under review and secondly, further seasonal flora and fauna surveys.
The approvals process, together with the logistics and estimated costs of mining and transporting the Lake Hope mud to the process plant, form one of the four critical parts of a pre-feasibility study on Lake Hope, which is in progress. Impact can take an 80 per cent interest in Playa One, which owns the Lake Hope Project and associated intellectual property, by completing the PFS.
The PFS followed on from a positive scoping study, which showed that for a benchmark production of 10,000t per annum of HPA, the project has an estimated post-tax net present value of about $1.3 billion and would potentially be one of the lowest-cost producers of HPA globally.
Impact Minerals’ Managing Director, Dr Mike Jones, said, “We are very pleased to have lodged Impact’s first-ever mining lease, a major step in our goal to bring the Lake Hope High Purity Alumina project into production.
“The application covers West Lake and sufficient material for at least the first 15 years of proposed production. It also offers a more direct haulage route to the Norseman-Hyden Road than existing tracks, potentially saving millions of dollars in road construction costs.”
Dr Jones said the application also clearly sets a path towards gaining the statutory approvals required for the grant of the mining lease.
“This will require engaging in a well-defined negotiation process with the Ngadju Aboriginal people, the Traditional Custodians of the land around Lake Hope and further seasonal flora and fauna surveys in and around the proposed mine infrastructure.”
Dr Jones said the company will progress on both paths in the next quarter.
“All this work at what will be the Lake Hope Mine is one piece of the large jigsaw puzzle that comprises the pre-feasibility study, and we continue to make progress with the other key pieces: the process plant, test work, product offtake and marketing.
“We are working towards completing the PFS by the end of the year and set ourselves up for significant strides towards production and offtake in 2025.”
Featured image: Kanungnit/shutterstock.com
