Earth AI, Legacy Minerals make first greenfield palladium discovery using artificial intelligence
The companies announced the verified discovery of one of the largest palladium mineral systems in Australia.
Eurobattery Minerals announced Tuesday that the company is acquiring another 30% of shares in FinnCobalt Oy, the owner of the ground and mining rights to the Hautalampi nickel-cobalt-copper project in Finland in a €1 million ($1.8m) cash and shares deal, upping its stake to 70%.
The company has the right to acquire 100% of the shares in FinnCobalt in a staged process until May 2024.
The announcement comes a day after Eurobattery Minerals released the results of a pre-feasibility study, reporting strong economics for the project.
The 280-hectare Hautalampi project is located in the Outokumpu mining camp, the same area as the famous Keretti copper mine, which was active between 1912 and 1989. According to Eurobattery Minerals, the orebody is parallel to and above the exploited copper deposit. A historical resource estimate for the project shows 3.2 million tonnes at 0.43% nickel, 0.35% copper and 0.12% cobalt.
In 2021, an updated resource estimate released for Hautalampi showed that the total tonnage in the measured, indicated and inferred resource categories increased approximately 100%, while contained metal approximately 50% in the mine lease area.
In the measured category, the resource has been estimated at 2.58 million tonnes grading 0.38% nickel, 0.28% copper and 0.08% cobalt. In the indicated category, the estimation is at 2.70 million tonnes grading 0.31% nickel, 0.20% copper and 0.08% cobalt. Contained metals have been estimated at 18,289 tonnes of nickel, 12,783 tonnes of copper and 4,337 tonnes of cobalt.
“We are very pleased to continue to deliver on our strategy to provide battery minerals from Europe to Europe, now as the majority owner of the Hautalampi mine project,” Eurobattery Minerals CEO Roberto García said in a news release.
“With the pre-feasibility study just announced we know that the economic outlook for the battery mineral mine in Finland is strong,” said Martínez.
According to the pre-feasibility study, with a conservative metal price, and a total capital expenditure of €65.1 million euro excluding contingency the payback period is 4.6 years. Mining will commence after a one-year construction period including rehabilitation of the underground mine, construction of the surface crushing and processing plants, and a new tailings storage facility, the company said.
Total metal production during the anticipated 12 years mining operations will be 11,400 tonnes of nickel and 2,900 tonnes of cobalt in concentrate and 9,600 tonnes of copper in concentrate.
