Ta Khoa Nickel Project: Successful Completion of Concentrator Pilot Programme

Blackstone Minerals Limited (“Blackstone” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the completion of the Ta Khoa Nickel (“TKN”) plant pilot programme and significant progress toward completion of the variability testwork programme at the existing mine site in Vietnam. The completion of the TKN pilot programme is in addition to completing the Ta Khoa Refinery (“TKR”) pilot programme (Refer to ASX announcement 15 November 2022). This demonstrates completion of all scheduled piloting activities for the Ta Khoa Project.

Work conducted to date has confirmed the baseline flowsheet to treat ore through to concentrate from the nickel mine. Both pilot and variability testwork programmes have successfully achieved or exceeded pre-feasibility study (“PFS”) testwork assumptions. These important milestones for the site metallurgy and project team will enable consolidation of data and learnings to progress the TKN mine and concentrator definitive feasibility study (“DFS”).

Key highlights of the programme are:

• 97,280 labour hours of operation without injury,
• Achieved PFS recovery assumptions, improving average nickel grade from PFS assumed 8.0% to 10.2% (Refer to ASX announcement 28 February 2022),
• Achieved concentrate grade between 8.0% to 20.0% nickel,
• Produced 172 dry metric tonnes of concentrate,
• Completed over 350 bench scale flotation tests and over 100 baseline variability flotation tests,
• Recovery upside within the existing concentrator plant of up to +6% points when compared against pilot plant recoveries for the same lithologies,
• 5,795 tonnes of feed via existing concentrator plant and pilot plant,
• Over 300 hours of operation of existing concentrator and pilot plant,
• Successfully generated over 7.5 tonnes of concentrate samples for the Ta Khoa Refinery DFS pilot programme.

Piloting and Testwork Programme Overview

The following major activities were part of the piloting and testwork programme:

• Confirmed various circuit configurations and reagent regimes,
• Confirmation of ore comminution characteristics and power consumption,
• Completion of third-party technical review of the TKN DFS piloting and testwork programme, including onsite supervision by GR Engineering Services,
• Completion of a bulk sample drive and metallurgical drilling programme supporting a comprehensive metallurgy programme for the TKN DFS,
• Completion of trials and production of concentrate through the existing plant,
• Successfully tested Glencore and Metso vendor equipment for DFS flowsheet development,
• Variability testwork programme ongoing.

Figure 2: Vendor piloting - Jameson Cell trials producing improvements in Nickel and MgO concentrate grades

Figure 3 – Vendor piloting - Pressure filtration testwork trials

The DFS testwork programme, inclusive of process variability testwork and reporting, is due to be completed by CY 2023.

Blackstone Minerals’ Managing Director, Scott Williamson, commented:

“Testwork at Ban Phuc is approaching completion and continues to build our understanding of the disseminated sulphide ore body whilst addressing key recommendations arising from independent review of the PFS works. The programme has been conducted safely at our site facilities and is providing substantial knowledge, training, and understanding for our project and technical teams. Importantly, the results to date validate, support and in many areas improve on PFS assumptions and criteria that will underpin our definitive feasibility study. Outputs confirm that our project flowsheet will be suitable for processing of Ban Phuc ores to deliver critical feedstock for our downstream refinery, confirming our strategy for developing the Ta Khoa Project, being an integrated mine to pCAM project.”

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