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NICKel CoNFeReNCe PReVIeW

Oz/Cassini extend

West Musgrave PFS

By the end of 2019, Oz Minerals’ expenditure on the West
Musgrave JV with Cassini will have reached $50 million

ith Oz Minerals Ltd doing the heavy 800km west of Uluru, near the borders of WMP, however, with 50,000m of drilling
Wlifting at the West Musgrave project Western Australia, South Australia and completed since the last resource up-
(WMP) JV, Cassini Resources Ltd has Northern Territory – due consideration date, expectations are that the mine life
taken the opportunity to explore more of is being paid to innovations that will help will be increased to at least 15 years in
its portfolio in its own right. improve the valuation of the project in the PFS and a maiden ore reserve also
Oz has satisfied JV conditions, namely consultation with Traditional Owners and delivered.
contributing $36 million towards the Ne- government agencies plus international The West Musgrave province is largely
bo-Babel PFS and regional exploration, and local experts adept at handling re- under-explored and within just 15km of
which now sees it own 70% of the WMP mote operations. Nebo-Babel, the JV sees great poten-
with Cassini holding the remaining inter- “These include the use of a reduced tial in upgrading the inferred resource at
est. site footprint via a Remote Operations Succoth and continues to see vast pro-
An update on the WMP PFS was pro- Centre, the use of hybrid power solu- spectivity at One Tree Hill.
vided in late August and was highlighted tions, potential to use innovative tech- “It is likely that the PFS study will be
by Oz’s board approving an additional nology and a process flow sheet, which completed in early January and will in-
$10 million to extend the PFS. pilot testing has shown, could result in a clude an updated resource and obvi-
Spending by the JV is already sub- significant reduction in power usage,” Oz ously a lot of that inferred material will be
stantial and ahead of schedule and fi- chief executive Andrew Cole said when moved into indicated. That will underpin
nalisation of the PFS is expected in early providing the WMP PFS update. a much longer mine life; the resource I
January. “We believe these opportunities have think is in really good shape,” Cassini
The extension of the PFS is not ex- the potential to reduce our carbon foot- managing director Richard Bevan told
pected to materially impact the timing of print and power costs versus a traditional Paydirt.
the feasibility study completion, as the mine footprint while improving overall “Oz has brought a lot of that feasibil-
JV sets upon firming up a “single go- project economics.” ity study drilling into this phase to make
forward option” to be assessed in the A base case 10 mtpa open pit copper- sure that the resource is in good shape.
feasibility study. nickel operation lasting an initial eight The other thing that we have done a lot
Given the remoteness of the WMP – years is what the JV is working on at the of is met testing. We have had some re-

Page 102 OCTOBeR 2019 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT