Poseidon Nickel's metallurgical testing confirms cerberus potential

SYDNEY (Scrap Monster): Poseidon Nickel Limited (ASX:POS) has announced the positive results from initial flotation test work completed for the Cerberus Nickel sulphide ore body discovered at the Windarra Nickel project. 

This test work demonstrated a greater than 80% nickel recovery at a nickel concentrate head grade of 18% achieved in less than 5 minutes.  This result has supported a decision to significantly expand the drilling programme at Cerberus.

David Singleton, Managing Director and CEO of Poseidon Nickel said “These results continue to support our belief that Cerberus could be mined and processed shortly after we have commissioned the Mt Windarra mine.  The development of this new ore body is now progressing very quickly.  We expect to complete sufficient drilling over the next few months so that we can undertake a mine reserve study later this year targeting a Cerberus mine start up in 2013.

The metallurgical composite sample was characterised by Roger Townend and Associates Consulting Mineralogist and the flotation test was carried out by SGS Lakefield Oretest in Perth.

The flotation test work results confirmed that a high quality smeltable concentrate could be produced with low levels of impurities. The grade recovery curve obtained from the test work results demonstrated that greater than 80% nickel recovery could be achieved in less than 5 minutes producing a clean concentrate with an associated nickel head grade of approximately 18%. 

As infill drilling of the Cerberus orebody progresses further test work is planned to confirm that the flotation results are reproducible and consistent across the deposit.    Poseidon has recently reported an approximate 50% increase to the newly discovered Cerberus deposit at the Windarra Nickel Project, with approximately 40% of the ore body now at an Indicated JORC level. 

As a result, Poseidon has announced that a major drilling programme of 20,000 metres of diamond and R.C. is underway to test the extensions of the known resource and to bring it up to an Indicated and Measured category, prior to commencing formal mine planning.