Inco starts feasibility studies for its Goro nickel project

In keeping with its plan to boost nickel production by 20% over the next decade, Inco (TSE) will proceed with a feasibility study at its Goro nickel project in the French island of New Caledonia.

The study, due for completion by late 1996, will be sponsored by Goro Nickel, ownership of which is split 85-15 between Inco and Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minieres (BRGM).

The Goro project hosts at least 165 million tonnes of nickel laterite averaging 1.6% nickel and 0.16% cobalt.

The feasibility study will investigate the possibility of using acid leaching combined with solvent extraction-electrowinning to process the lateritic ores. The technology, developed at an Inco laboratory, has been tested at a pilot plant.

New Caledonia lies east of Queensland, Australia, in the Southwestern Pacific Ocean.

In the second quarter, Inco earned US$55.5 million (or US47 cents per share), compared with a loss of US$11.2 million (US10 cents a share) in the same period of 1994.

The stronger earnings were a function of higher metal prices, increased deliveries of metals and improved results from the company’s alloys and engineered products business.

Inco’s realized nickel price averaged US$3.65 per lb. in the second quarter and US$3.85 for the first six months, compared with average prices of US$2.86 and $2.82 per lb., respectively, during the same periods in 1994. The realized copper price averaged US$1.31 and US$1.35 during these 1995 periods, compared with US98 cents and US93 cents in the previous year.

Between January and June of this year, Inco earned US$122.6 million (or US$1.04 per share), compared with a loss of US$74.8 (or 66 cents a share) in the first half of 1994.