{"id":1143361,"date":"2019-10-10T17:57:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T22:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1004156"},"modified":"2019-10-10T17:57:28","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T22:57:28","slug":"first-cobalt-assesses-refinery-condition-ahead-of-restart-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1143361","title":{"rendered":"First Cobalt assesses refinery condition ahead of restart decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First Cobalt (TSXV:FCC)&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"announced Thursday (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.firstcobalt.com\/investors\/news\/first-cobalt-restores-power-at-the-refinery--and-commences-field-program\" >announced Thursday<\/a> that power has been restored to its refinery north of Toronto, and the company has deployed a team of engineers and technicians to commence a field program to assess the condition of the&nbsp;refinery, which has been on care and&nbsp;maintenance&nbsp;since 2015.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The field program, which will run for the next six weeks, is in support of an ongoing definitive feasibility study (DFS) led by Ausenco Engineering Canada on a recommissioning and expansion of the existing refinery. The DFS is expected to be completed in Q1 2020.<\/p>\n<p>A scoping study released in May concluded that First Cobalt&#8217;s refinery could be expanded from its current 12 tonne per day (tpd) throughput capacity to 55 tpd. <\/p>\n<p>The study and supporting metallurgical test work estimated that the refinery was capable of producing over 5,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade cobalt in sulphate for the electric vehicle industry at a capital cost of $37.5 million, which First Cobalt says could represent up to 5% of the global market for refined cobalt. <\/p>\n<p>The current field program involves temporarily restoring power to the refinery to inspect and test all installed equipment and systems to gain a better understanding of their condition. <\/p>\n<p>This phase of work will identify components that require upgrading or replacement prior to recommissioning the refinery. This allows for a greater level of confidence in the capital cost estimates included in the 55 tpd DFS and better prepare the company for a quick recommissioning of the refinery upon a formal restart decision. <\/p>\n<p>The plan is to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"recommission the\u00a0refinery (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/web\/first-cobalt-targets-canada-plant-restart-within-2-years-ceo\/\" >recommission the\u00a0refinery<\/a>\u00a0at 12 t\/d in 2020, and then expand to 55 t\/d the following year.<\/p>\n<p>First Cobalt has already received <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/glencore-commits-45-million-to-restart-first-cobalt-refinery-in-canada\/\" >financial backing from Swiss mining giant<\/a> Glencore to study recommissioning the&nbsp;refinery. Additional funding from Glencore is expected upon completion of the DFS for&nbsp;recommissioning and expanding the refinery. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First Cobalt has already received financial backing from Swiss mining giant Glencore to study recommissioning the refinery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[369,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1143361"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143366,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143361\/revisions\/1143366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}