KING RIVER RESOURCES LIMITED HPA PROJECT - UPDATE
Australian Securities Exchange Announcement 19 April 2022
Project Update - Focus on Critical Mineral Production
Highlights
The Australian Federal Government adds High Purity Alumina to Australia's critical minerals list
Market investigations into HPA indicates end-users showing increasing demand for Australian products
Production of >5N purity Aluminium Salt Precursor 1 compound demonstrated in six campaigns.
Process advancements to be applied to the HPA PFS completed in June 2021
Summary
King River Resources Limited (ASX:KRR) provides this update on the ongoing, engineering, market research, laboratory pilot plant work as part of the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for the Type 1 Precursor Production Plant. As reported on the 8th of September 2021 KRR chose to pursue the opportunities associated with the processing of our 5N (99.999%) purity Type 1 Precursor (an Aluminium Salt) for the battery manufacturing industry.
Critical Minerals List
The Australian Federal Government has added High Purity Alumina to Australia's critical minerals list and is taking action to grow Australia into a critical minerals powerhouse, capitalising on the strength of Australia's world-leading resources sector, expertise in processing and highly skilled workforce. $200 million has been committed to the Critical Minerals Accelerator Initiative to support strategically significant projects at challenging points in their development. This funding will accelerate projects to market and drive investment.*
KRR sees the addition of HPA to the Critical Minerals list as a very supportive opportunity to access an increase level of funding opportunities and grant levels than were previously available to the industry.
Market Investigation
Market engagement from 4N High Purity Alumina end-users has shown evidence of increasing demand for new supply from Australia with supply requirements well in excess of the capacity of the size of the current pilot plant. Internal assessments are underway to review the scale up potential of the DFS plant or the application of the new HPA Process to the previous PFS larger scale design
Process Advancements
Laboratory testwork by Source Certain International (SCI) has advanced to define a new process route to make 4N HPA (KRR ASX announcements 4 January 2022 and 16 March 2022) that modifies the initial process upon which the previous HPA Prefeasibility Study was based. The new process not only provides a potentially more economical pathway but is also a more environmentally friendly process route to the production of HPA. Work is underway to apply and refine this process to re-evaluate the PFS design. KRR is in discussion with Patent Attorneys on the protection of our IP associated with the newly developed processes.
*https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/2022-critical-minerals-strategy
Detailed Feasibility Study
The DFS has examined four main areas:
1. Laboratory pilot plant operation, which has successfully produced a 5N purity Aluminium Salt Precursor 1 compound in six campaigns. The result of the latest Campaign 6 is provided on page 3.
2. Engineering for the Detailed Feasibility study by Como Engineers has run on schedule, to provide process design, capital cost and operating cost estimates for the Precursor 1 process plant.
3. Permitting studies are investigating an established approval process for Kwinana.
4. Market investigations into trade level volumes and pricing for targeted products.
Financial Modelling of the DFS
The KRR Board has decided to place further work on the DFS for the 2000tpa 5N Aluminium Salt Precursor 1 plant on hold, including any further financial modelling, to capitalise on the other emerging HPA opportunities.
Work done to date has provided an excellent foundation of understanding on the Capital and Operating costs associated with this size of plant in such a modular flow sheet design.
Path Forward
The laboratory testwork is ongoing and the results will be used to examine different scales of 4N HPA production and further reduce capital and operating costs. Focus will be on the application potential to scale up the DFS plant currently designed or a modification to the previous PFS engineering design by applying these advancements to the HPA circuit removing equipment and process stages no longer required.
Engineering and financial modelling investigations are underway to modify and scale up the Precursor plant design to produce 4N purity (99.99%) High Purity Alumina (HPA) at a scale proportionate to market demand and which minimises the capex and opex for a profitable operation.
Type 1 Precursor - Campaign 6
Source Certain International (SCI) has continued to run the laboratory pilot plant to confirm and optimise the ARC process and produce market samples. Campaign 6, as per the previous runs, resulted in >99.999% purity for Precursor 1 (Figure 1).
The Type 1 Precursor Aluminium salt product from Campaign 6 was produced from an industrial chemical compound feedstock by the ARC Process. In Campaign 6 a new higher quality feedstock was used with an improvement in the final results (Figure 1). SCI assayed the Type 1 Precursor products using the ICP-MS and ICP-AES methods. As with previous campaigns, SCI completed 4 duplicate analyses on the Campaign 6 batch to improve confidence in the results (Figure 1) and the >99.999% purity is an average of the 4 repeat assays. Each Precursor purity result was calculated by the addition of all the assayed element impurities that reported above the detection limit then subtracting this result from 100%. Variability in the results is due to differences in the test sample and the analytical precision. The main contaminants in the Precursor are silicon (Si) and potassium (K).
Figure 1: Repeat assays for Type 1 Precursor from Campaign 6
This announcement was authorised by the Chairman of the Company.
Anthony Barton
Chairman
King River Resources Limited
Email:info@kingriverresources.com.auPhone: +61 8 92218055
Statement by Competent Person
The information in this report is based on information compiled by Mr Ken Rogers (BSc Hons) and fairly represents this information. Mr Rogers is the Chief Geologist and an employee of King River Resources Ltd, and a Member of both the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG number 2359) and The Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining (IMMM number 43552), and a Chartered Engineer of the IMMM. Mr Rogers has sufficient experience in the activities undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves. Mr Rogers consents to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on information in the form and context in which it appears.
Appendix 1: King River Resources Limited HPA Project JORC 2012 Table 1
SECTION 1 : SAMPLING TECHNIQUES AND DATA
personal use only
Criteria | JORC Code explanation | Commentary |
Sampling Techniques | Nature and quality of sampling (e.g. cut channels, random chips, or specific specialised industry standard measurement tools appropriate to the minerals under investigation, such as down hole gamma sondes, or handheld XRF instruments, etc.). These examples should not be taken as limiting the broad meaning of sampling. Include reference to measures taken to ensure sample representivity and the appropriate calibration of any measurement tools or systems used. Aspects of the determination of mineralisation that are Material to the Public Report. In cases where 'industry standard' work has been done this would be relatively simple (e.g. 'reverse circulation drilling was used to obtain 1 m samples from which 3 kg was pulverised to produce a 30 g charge for fire assay'). In other cases more explanation may be required, such as where there is coarse gold that has inherent sampling problems. Unusual commodities or mineralisation types (e.g. submarine nodules) may warrant disclosure of detailed information. | This ASX Release dated 19 April 2022 provides an update on KRR Precursor-HPA Project, including the production of 5N Precursor used to make precursor Cathode Active Materials (P-CAM) and high purity alumina (HPA) from an Aluminium chemical compound feedstock produced from other industrial chemical processes. Chemical precipitation and recrystallisation purification methods of KRR's ARC process have been used in the separation and precipitation of the high purity Aluminium Precursor compound reported in this announcement. The details of the process are a trade secret and commercial in confidence. The Type 1 Precursor Aluminium Salt product reported in this announcement represents the results of Campaign 5 of a series of planned test runs using KRR's laboratory scale pilot plant at the SCI laboratory. Campaign 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Precursor Type 1 products reported in this announcement used 9.5kg, 9.5kg, 7.385kg, 8.995kg, 8.995kg and 8.995kg samples respectively of the industrial chemical feedstock. Analytical duplicate subsamples were taken from the Precursor sample for analysis. |
Drilling techniques | Drill type (e.g. core, reverse circulation, open-hole hammer, rotary air blast, auger, Bangka, sonic, etc.) and details (e.g. core diameter, triple or standard tube, depth of diamond tails, face-sampling bit or other type, whether core is oriented and if so, by what method, etc.). | Not Applicable. The samples were generated from a feedstock of an industrial chemical. |
Drill sample recovery | Method of recording and assessing core and chip sample recoveries and results assessed. | Not Applicable. |
Measures taken to maximise sample recovery and ensure representative nature of the samples. | Not Applicable. | |
Whether a relationship exists between sample recovery and grade and whether sample bias may have occurred due to preferential loss/gain of fine/coarse material. | Not Applicable. | |
Logging | Whether core and chip samples have been geologically and geotechnically logged to a level of detail to support appropriate Mineral Resource estimation, mining studies and metallurgical studies. | Not Applicable. |
Whether logging is qualitative or quantitative in nature. Core (or costean, channel, etc.) photography. | Not Applicable. | |
The total length and percentage of the relevant intersections logged. | Not Applicable. | |
Sub-sampling techniques and sample preparation | If core, whether cut or sawn and whether quarter, half or all core taken. | Not Applicable. |
If non-core, whether riffled, tube sampled, rotary split, etc. and whether sampled wet or dry. | Not Applicable. | |
For all sample types, the nature, quality and appropriateness of the sample preparation technique. | Not Applicable. | |
Quality control procedures adopted for all sub-sampling stages to maximise representivity of samples. | Not Applicable. | |
Measures taken to ensure that the sampling is representative of the in situ material collected, including for instance results for field duplicate/second-half sampling. | Not Applicable. | |
Whether sample sizes are appropriate to the grain size of the material being sampled. | Sample sizes are considered appropriate to the grain size of the material being sampled. |
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King River Resources Ltd. published this content on 19 April 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 19 April 2022 00:13:09 UTC.
