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NICKEL CONFERENCE REVIEW

Poseidon in primetime

oseidon Nickel Ltd expects to be in rehabilitation of mine escape ladderways of factors, one of which is the nickel price
Pa position to make a final investment and plant accessways. Dewatering of the retaining its premium position.”
decision on an operational restart at existing open pit is expected to take up to Based on the assumptions in the PFS,
Black Swan by the end of the month. six months. Poseidon will target nickel production of
Interim chief executive David Riekie It comes after Poseidon recently an- 7,500 tpa at $US5.10/lb from process-
said a range of activities currently under nounced a 33% increase to the high- ing 1.1 mtpa (plant capacity is 2.2 mtpa),
way at Black Swan, including an update grade Silver Swan deposit which now supporting an initial three-year mine life.
of last year’s PFS, were all geared to- contains 16,000t @ 9.5% nickel. Restart capex is estimated at circa $30
wards having the project primed for the “The company expects to be in a posi- million with a further $25 million of work-
Poseidon board to approve a restart of tion to consider that restart upon comple- ing capital required thereafter.
the former Norilsk-run operation. tion of those tasks to get to a FID by the “We’re actually certain now what the
This includes almost $3 million worth end of this calendar year,” Riekie said. required works are likely to be and we do
of “time critical” precursor works such as “It’s going to be contingent on a couple not have to spend a lot of money to put
a facility that would otherwise have
cost $150 million back into operation,”
Riekie said.
Poseidon expects first nickel con-
centrate from Black Swan to come
within 6-9 months of the final invest-
ment decision.
Riekie said the restart of Black
Swan would quickly open doors for
the company to consider restarts of
its other legacy projects at Lake John-
ston and Windarra.
“We’d like to think that after the ini-
tial restart we’re capable of delivering
with Black Swan that there is a sig-
nificant level of potential that sits for a
longer term, integrated portfolio of our
assets,” he said.
“We’ve got a very desirable suite of
assets, all 100% owned by Poseidon,
which puts us in a very good position,
and a restart campaign will be the cat-
alyst for that cash flow and the option-
ality that comes with an asset actually
in production.”
– Michael Washbourne
David Riekie

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