First Cobalt recently announced the commencement of a metallurgical study to be conducted on a high grade inventory of refinery residue and crushed waste rock material located near the First Cobalt mill facility in the Canadian Cobalt Camp. This study is intended to advance the Company’s early cash flow strategy by assessing an optimal flow sheet for recovering cobalt and silver, as well as arsenic removal and stabilization.
Trent Mell, President & Chief Executive Officer, commented:
“The results of this program will improve our understanding of processing options for materials from the Cobalt Camp. While we continue to advance our exploration strategy, another key strategic objective is to seize upon the opportunity to generate early cash flow from material left on surface from historic mining operations. This study is an important step toward our goal of producing cobalt battery materials in North America.”
First Cobalt has partnered with Dundee Sustainable Technologies in Quebec to develop a flow sheet for potentially processing the piles using the First Cobalt mill equipment and the First Cobalt Refinery and to understand the benefits of integrating Dundee’s arsenic removal and stabilization technology.
According to a 2014 historic resource estimate, which is non-compliant with NI 43-101 and was prepared by an external consultant for internal use for a previous property owner, the three piles contain approximately 6,500 tonnes of material with average grades ranging from 0.65% to 1.55% cobalt.