Update on the Pre-Feasibility Study at the Lake Hope High Purity Alumina Project WA

Impact Minerals Limited’s (ASX:IPT) is pleased to provide an update on the progress of the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) underway on the Lake Hope High Purity Alumina (HPA) project located 500 km east of Perth in Western Australia and on schedule to be finished by the end of 2024 (Figure 1). Impact can take an 80% interest in Playa One Pty Limited, which owns the Lake Hope Project and associated intellectual property, by completing the PFS (ASX Releases March 21st 2023).

The Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) for the Lake Hope Project continues on schedule to be completed in Q4 this year, with significant progress made on the three main pillars of the Study: the mine, the process plant and product development, marketing and offtake.

The Mine at Lake Hope:

• A negotiation protocol for Land Access and Cultural Heritage agreements with the Ngadju peoples is under review.
• Applications for a Mining Lease and associated Miscellaneous Lease will be lodged shortly.
• Infill drilling to define a maiden Measured Resource and Proven Reserve completed with resource calculations and economic studies in progress.
• Further flora fauna and heritage surveys are being planned for the mine haul road.

The Process Plant:

• Kwinana selected as the location for a benchmark production of 10,000 tonnes per annum of HPA due to access to providers of the required input chemical reagents, buyers of the fertiliser and acid by-products and access to suitable land. Combined, these provide substantial strategic advantages for the project with savings on capex and opex.
• The Low-Temperature Leach process selected as the most straightforward processing method to produce HPA at scale.
• CPC Engineering selected to provide a design and engineering study for the full-scale plant that is underway.

Product development, offtake and marketing

• Significant test work on HPA and fertiliser by-products completed with assays due in August. Quotes received and discussions in progress for designing and constructing a pilot plant to provide bulk samples to customers.
• Experimental work has produced a hydrated alumina product that may have major applications in the catalyst and flame retardant industries.
• Early-stage discussions are underway for potential synergies with existing alumina businesses in Europe and the USA.
• A marketing and product development team is being assembled.

All material assumptions underpinning the production target and the forecast financial information derived from the production target in the Scoping Study continue to apply and have not materially changed within the +/-30% parameters (ASX November 9th 2023).

Impact Minerals’ Managing Director, Dr Mike Jones, said, “The Lake Hope Pre-Feasibility Study is like a large jigsaw puzzle where we know what the final picture looks like and are now starting to see many of the individual pieces falling into place at a great pace. We have been focused on the puzzle's edges with progress made at the proposed mine at Lake Hope itself, the process plant, which will be in Kwinana and increasingly, product offtake and marketing.

We are filling the puzzle with discussions with the Ngadju peoples, preparing a Mining Lease Application and completing drilling to help define a maiden Reserve. We have selected Kwinana as the site for the processing plant and our proprietary Low-Temperature Leach as the best method to scale up HPA production to the planned 10,000 tonnes per annum because of substantial strategic advantages. These include ready providers for all the reagents we need, ready buyers for our by-products and a site possibly suitable for the plant. As a result, we recently commissioned CPC Engineering to provide design engineering and capital and operating costs for the LTL process plant on that site.

Our test work is progressing well, and as part of that, we recently discovered a product that may have various industrial uses with further research being done. We are looking at ways of accelerating a pilot plant development that will provide HPA in quantity to potential customers and are starting to assemble a marketing team to continue our outreach to them. Recent developments with Alpha HPA Limited, which has shown very strong global demand for HPA and related products, clearly demonstrate to me that “if we build it, they will come”. We continue on schedule to complete the PFS by the end of the year and set ourselves up for significant strides towards production in 2025”.

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