Singapore 28/06/2016 - Independence Group has mined the first ore at its Nova project in Western Australia and is on track to commence production of nickel and copper concentrates in December, the company said in a filing to the Australia Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
The mine will be able to produce 26,000 tonnes per year of nickel in concentrate and 11,500 tonnes per year of copper in concentrate.
The project was 90 percent complete as at end-May.
Independence has three-year offtake agreements with Glencore, which will take half of its nickel output for exporting, and BHP Billion Nickel West, which will take the other half of the production. Trafigura and Independence also have a three-year offtake agreement which will see the former take 100-percent of Nova’s copper concentrates for exports.
Independence took over Nova mine after it bought Sirius Resources for A$1.8 billion ($1.3 billion) last year.
Independence operates another three mines in Western Australia that produces nickel, zinc, copper, gold and silver.