Amur Minerals upbeat on results from Kun-Manie evaluation

The AIM-traded firm said the work was completed during the first and second quarters by Gipronickel Institute, a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, and confirmed that individual copper and nickel sulphide concentrates could be generated using “industry-standard” sulphide flotation methods.

It said that, from the projected six million processed ore tonnes per annum, 39,300 tonnes of copper concentrate was projected to be created, having an average copper grade of 23.4%.

Similarly, 489,960 tonnes of nickel concentrate would contain an average of 10.35%.

By-product gold, averaging 1.87 grams of gold per tonne of concentrate, and silver, averaging 21.6 grams of silver per tonne of concentrate,would primarily report to the copper concentrate, with the dominant amount of the cobalt averaging 1.71% per tonne of concentrate, platinum averaging 1.04 grams per tonne of concentrate, and palladium (averaging 1.20 grams per tonne of concentrate reporting to the nickel concentrate.

Amur said Gipronickel's test work post-dated the February 2019 pre-feasibility study, wherein the base case derived revenues from payable nickel only.

The ability to generate a separate copper concentrate should “materially and substantially” impact the economic potential of the project, the board said, with the recovery of additional revenues related to the payable portion of 9,182 tonnes of copper per annum.

By-product metals within a copper concentrate often sourced additional revenues, being gold and silver in the case of Kun-Manie.

At present, Gipronickel was finalising the process flowsheet and related costs allowing for the appropriate adjustments to consumables and power requirements, among other things.

Amur said updated operating and capital costs, the newly identified metallurgical recoveries and terms and conditions of the offtake agreements for nickel and copper would directly impact on the calculation of the metal equivalent cutoff grade for nickel.

Additionally, the change in the cutoff grade would impact the mining reserve and mine plan.

“Assessment of Gipronickel's draft metallurgical report on the generation of a separate nickel and copper concentrate is quite encouraging,” said chief executive officer Robin Young.

“With the two concentrates we could deliver, from Kun-Manie, up to 20 million pounds of copper, 2,000 ounces of gold and 25,000 ounces of silver to an offtake purchaser, a revenue source not previously considered in the base case project economics.

“Obviously, we must account for the incremental capital / operating costs, terms and conditions and other costs attributable to the copper concentrate creation process.”

At 1425 BST, shares in Amur Minerals Corporation were up 2.61% at 1.18p.