The way is clear for Bryah to proceed with a Pre-Feasibility Study into base metals production at its Gabanintha project, after increasing Indicated and Inferred resources by 15%.

Gabanintha now has a resource of 36 million tonnes grading 766 parts per million nickel, 212ppm copper and 231ppm cobalt for 27,596t of contained nickel, 7,630t of nickel and 8,303t of cobalt.

Bryah Resources (ASX:BYH) holds the rights for all minerals, excluding vanadium, titanium, iron ore, cobalt, chromium, uranium, lithium, tantalum and manganese, which are held by Australian Vanadium (ASX:AVL) under its namesake project.

The two companies are working together to maximise the recovery of metals from this world class Vanadium-Titanium-Magnetite (VTM) deposit, with Bryah taking the lead on studies relating to the base metals recovery circuit.

Meanwhile, AVL has already completed a Bankable Feasibility Study for its Australian Vanadium project.

The Big Boss speaks

Bryah CEO Ashley Jones says that with AVL progressing towards vanadium production and securing a $49m Modern Manufacturing Initiative grant from the government – for which the company is named as a collaborator – Bryah is also a step closer to realising value in its mineral rights.

“We are very pleased to report a substantial increase of 15% in the base metals Mineral Resource within the high-grade vanadium-titanium-magnetite deposit at Gabanintha,” he adds.

“Metallurgical test work from 2018 and 2022 indicates that a significant non-magnetic nickel-copper-cobalt rich sulphide tailings stream would come from the plant following magnetic separation of the vanadium bearing magnetite concentrate.

“We know that the vanadium ore beneficiation process effectively concentrates the sulphide minerals in the tail, enabling further concentration by flotation methods.”

During AVL’s feasibility studies, flotation test work of non-magnetic tails from the vanadium beneficiation produced sulphide concentrates that contained up to 6.3% base metals including up to 2.02% cobalt, 2.58% nickel and 1.70% copper.

Resource within a resource

Given the nature of the Gabanintha resource, the higher confidence indicated portion (16.1Mt at 762ppm nickel, 212ppm copper and 231ppm cobalt) is actually contained within the high-grade zone in AVL’s three planned open pits.

The base metals look like being the potentially economically recoverable portion of the sulphide tails produced through the beneficiation of the vanadium ore.

The material will be processed through AVL’s planned 1.6 million tonnes per annum crushing, milling and beneficiation plant.

Bryah notes that while the processing plant currently doesn’t include a sulphide flotation circuit, a provisional area was allowed for in the design.

The Inferred material is located beneath the optimised pits in the vanadium high-grade domain, within the classified vanadium resource.

Next steps at Gabanintha

Bryah is currently liaising with AVL to incorporate the base metal circuit into the BFS study format.

This may include further test work in line with the new schedule where the southern pits are mined earlier.

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Bryah Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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