Australian Mines Ltd reports that the critical autoclave component for its demonstration-size processing plant arrived and was installed over the Christmas period at the Simulus Laboratories site in Perth, Western Australia.

• Commissioning of the processing plant on schedule for the end of this month
• Potential off-take partners to receive cobalt sulphate, nickel sulphate and scandium oxide samples in February

The demonstration plant remains on track for completion and commissioning before the end of this month with the plant expected to commence processing ore previously delivered from trial mining at the Sconi cobalt-nickel-scandium project in Queensland within the next three weeks.

Australian Mines’ Managing Director, Benjamin Bell, commented: “With the autoclave in place, we look forward to producing commercial grade cobalt sulphate, nickel sulphate and scandium oxide, which will be delivered to the potential off-take partners on a priority basis in February.

“Following our oversubscribed capital raising late last year, we are fully-funded to complete our BFS on Sconi and take that project through to a final investment decision, including a comprehensive program of ore processing through the demonstration plant to fine-tune the larger scale engineering studies.”