Impact Minerals’ Lake Hope measured resource points the way to HPA future

Impact Minerals defines maiden measured resource of 189,000t contained alumina at Lake Hope
Resource is enough to support at least 15 years of proposed HPA production
Early receipt of $2.87m grant funding to accelerate construction of pilot plant

Special Report: Impact Minerals has pencilled in a maiden measured resource of 730,000t grading 25.8% alumina at its Lake Hope project in WA that supports the first 15 years of proposed high purity alumina production.

The contained measured resource of 189,000t of alumina will underpin a maiden probable or proven reserve subject to ongoing mining studies, test work and economic studies to be completed as part of the pre-feasibility study.

Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) expects to complete the PFS in Q1 2025 as part of its plan to fast track Lake Hope’s production of low-cost, high-margin products.

This will capitalise on a rapidly expanding global market that has seen prices for benchmark 4N HPA (99.99% purity alumina) and related products hit more than US$20,000/t.

Adding interest, a few months ahead of schedule the company will receive the first tranches from the recent $2.87 million grant for the CRC-P research and development project with CPC Engineering and Edith Cowan University to construct a pilot plant for Lake Hope.

This will land by the end November, thanks to an agreement with the Australian federal government, and it will accelerate construction of the pilot plant, which will provide consistent material for off-take and qualification trials.

Location of the Lake Hope project. Pic: Impact Minerals

Lake Hope project at a glance

The Lake Hope project currently has a broader measured, indicated and inferred resource of 2.78Mt at 25.1% alumina, or 700,000t of contained alumina.

This is enough of the unique mud-like ore, which is just 2m deep in two small dry lakes within the Lake Hope playa system, to be mined for at least 25 years if not more.

An earlier scoping study had outlined attractive economics for a proposed 10,000tpa HPA plant including net present value of $1.3bn and one of the world’s lowest operating costs at US$4000 to US$5000 per tonne which compares favourably with those reported by other ASX-listed HPA hopefuls.

Alpha HPA (ASX: A4N) and FYI Resources (ASX: FYI) had released estimates of US$5,940/t and US$6,217/t , though these have not been adjusted for ongoing inflation costs since publication in March 2020 and April 2021 respectively.

IPT notes that about 60% of the new measured resource lies within West Lake, over which Impact recently pegged a mining lease application.

Increasing the size of this resource is a simple matter of carrying out further low-cost push-tube sampling of the lake.

The company adds that grade appears to increase towards the centre of the lakes, offering an opportunity for preferential mining of the higher-grade material in the early stages of any future mine development.

Push tube sampling at Lake Hope. Pic: Impact Minerals

Grant funding and pilot plant

Meanwhile, the $2.87m grant provided under the government’s Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) program is part of a more extensive research and development project designed to provide IPT with the relevant information required to complete a definitive feasibility study.

A vital component of this is the construction of a pilot plant that will provide consistent HPA samples for off-take and qualification trials.

The early start agreed to with the government should also accelerate the entire research program.

IPT has developed innovative metallurgical processes to produce HPA and fertiliser by-products from the salts in the Lake Hope deposit, which will be mined and trucked to Kwinana for processing.

Mining and processing work is expected to have a minimal environmental footprint, with no on-site beneficiation required at the mine, nominal long-term rehabilitation requirements and one of the lowest Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions of any HPA production process globally.

This article was developed in collaboration with Impact Minerals, 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.