ASX-listed King River Resources has confirmed previously reported output of high-purity alumina at purity levels greater than 99.99 per cent from its Speewah Dome project in WA’s Kimberley region via recently conducted assay tests. The Perth-based company says the high purity alumina batches were produced by calcining high-purity precursor materials purified by its refining process from an industrial chemical feed stock material.
King River has called its high purity alumina refining process the ARC HPA process route, to reflect the aluminium chemical feed stock, the use of only recrystallisation steps in purification, and then final calcination.
The company says Como Engineers’ CAPEX and operating cost estimates are pending and once completed will be incorporated into what is now a well-advanced pre-feasibility study on Speewah.
Work has also kicked off on the development of a mini-pilot plant. It is aimed at showcasing the ARC HPA refining process at an increased scale for use in a definitive feasibility study and to produce market samples.
King River says metallurgical test work will continue as it looks to further fine tune the ARC HPA refining process for the definitive feasibility study. The current focus remains on further improving the precursor product to simplify the final calcination stage.
According to the company, to help ensure quality control and quality assurance three sets of assay checks were undertaken on the seven recent high-purity alumina samples.
Australian scientific and research company, Source Certain International, who specialises in geochemical verification, performed multiple repeat assays of King River’s HPA batches using the microwave digest method.
An independent laboratory also assayed HPA batches via the fusion X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and fusion-laser ablation mass spectrometry methods.
All repeat assays came back at 99.99 per cent high purity alumina or above.
The Speewah Dome deposit also contains vanadium, iron and titanium.
It hosts a mammoth mineral resource of 4.7 billion tonnes of ore grading an average 0.3 per cent vanadium pentoxide, 3.3 per cent titanium dioxide and 14.7 per cent iron.
King River looks to be setting its sights on Speewah Central’s high-grade alumina core going 12.5 per cent that will be the focal point of the pre-feasibility study.
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By Matt Birney
