Gerry McConnell, president of NovaGold Resources (TSE), firmly believes that the long-term survival of his company depends on a healthy degree of risk.
That strategy explains NovaGold’s ambitious foray into the ferric chloride leach (FCL) process, a mineral processing technique developed by CANMET (Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology). If NovaGold can demonstrate the commercial applications of the technique, it will revolutionize the mineral processing industry worldwide. Failure to do so would be a financial setback for NovaGold, whose main source of income is production from its Murray Brook gold mine in northern New Brunswick. “We’re small so we have to be aggressive,” McConnell told The Northern Miner. “This will give us an opportunity to leapfrog ahead of the majors.” As explained in the accompanying article, the FCL process dramatically increases recoveries for complex base metal ores. Test work carried out by CANMET on an underlying copper zone at the Murray Brook mine indicates recoveries of 98.5% for copper and 99.2% for silver. By extracting most of the metal and skipping the smelting stage entirely, the process also cuts down on tailings and eliminates harmful sulphur emissions.
Facing “a wall of skepticism,” NovaGold plans to construct a pilot plant to determine the feasibility of the new process later this year. McConnell says much of the financing for the $45-million project will come from federal and provincial governments, a selection of mining companies and oddly enough, some international oxygen suppliers, which stand to benefit from the plant’s considerable oxygen requirements.
If the copper circuit is a success, NovaGold plans to expand into lead and zinc processing. “A logical place to put the plant, for example, is the Caribou mine site,” McConnell said.
Within the next month or so, NovaGold will receive a feasibility report from U.K.-based Babcock Contractors, which are designing the 500-ton-per-day pilot plant. Babcock has been selected specifically for its expertise in addressing corrosion, one of the biggest problems with the leaching process. “The real problem with using it for any application has been corrosion,” said McConnell. “But with the advent of new construction materials we’ve solved that problem.”
A full-fledged processing plant would cost about $300 million to build, McConnell said.
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