Photo credit: Oro Nickel Limited
The Mining Advisory Council is now evaluating the mining lease application for the Mambare Nickel Project, one of the nation's future nickel and cobalt projects in Northern Province.
According to Jerry Garry, managing director of the Mineral Resources Authority, no decision has been taken regarding the nickel project's start of operations as of yet.
If given a mining permit, the Mambare Nickel Project will transport its ore abroad for processing rather than processing it locally like the Ramu Nickel mine in Madang.
The price and advantages of conveying the ore bodies are included in the critical evaluations.
According to Mr. Garry, Ramu Nickel has a very comparable deposit location. They process the product in Basamuk and send out what is referred to as the intermediate product rather than the ultimate product or mix nickel-cobalt hydroxide.
He said that high-quality ore pockets are what the mine is after.
“If they mine all the high-grade pockets, the low-grade pockets will become uneconomical,” Mr. Garry said.
He said that it is crucial because, if the entire ore body were to be mined in the future, it would be affected because these high-grade spots, which are essentially nickel grades above 1.5%, would have previously been exploited by direct shipping of ore.
The financial benefit of establishing downstream processing, like Ramu Nickel, as well as the benefit of transporting these directly, as well as the total advantages to the state, are the other issues that have been brought up.
All of them, according to Mr. Garry, have been carefully considered by the Mining Advisory Council.
He stated that the council will be in a position to issue or propose the issuance of the mining lease if they are convinced that the plan will better benefit the state and it is the only feasible choice for the exploitation of these resources.
Oro Nickel, a joint venture between Corcel Plc (41%), and Battery Metals Pty Ltd, owns all of Mambare (59 per cent).
Reference: Wohi, Lorraine. Post-Courier (4 August 2022). “Mambare Application For Lease Under Assessment”.
