Enterprise FQM Development Nickel Project

The Enterprise nickel project is located 12km away from our Sentinel copper mine in the North Western Province of Zambia.

Overview

Enterprise is a stand-alone nickel orebody in the north-west of the Trident license area. Given the operational and infrastructure synergies with the Sentinel copper mine, just 12km away, Enterprise is expected to be a low-cost nickel mine. Environmental approval has been granted, and preparatory works undertaken, so that pre-stripping can commence as market conditions become favourable.

The nickel process plant was completed in 2016, and shares a number of sections with the Sentinel process circuit. It is designed to produce 38,000 tonnes of nickel in concentrate, but this can be increased to 60,000 tonnes. The plant is integrated with the Sentinel copper circuit so that it can produce additional copper concentrate when not producing nickel.

Enterprise and Sentinel are 100 per cent owned by Kalumbila Minerals Limited (KML), a First Quantum subsidiary. They were secured in 2010 when First Quantum acquired 100 per cent of Kiwara PLC and its main asset – a controlling interest in a prospecting license on the periphery of the Kabombo Dome area. The combined license area was renamed Trident after the acquisition. Sentinel and Enterprise will ultimately share processing infrastructure and tailings facilities.

Mining and Processing

Enterprise is a sediment-hosted nickel-sulphide deposit with a total measured and indicated resource of 40 million tonnes of ore containing 431,000 tonnes of nickel.

Enterprise ore will be delivered to a dedicated system of dual primary crushers, crushed ore stockpile and conveying. Up to 4 million tonnes per year of nickel ore will be treated in a SAG – ball milling circuit with pebble crushing, flash flotation and nickel flotation.

Final concentrate, at a grade of between 24 per cent and 30 per cent nickel, will be thickened and filtered in a dedicated concentrate handling facility.

The Enterprise processing plant will share the Sentinel infrastructure and tailings will be discharged to the Sentinel tailings thickeners and tailings storage facility.

Environmental approval has been granted for Enterprise and preparatory works around the project have been undertaken to allow pre-stripping to commence when required.

Construction work on the process plant for Enterprise was completed in 2016, and some sections of the plant have been incorporated into the Sentinel process circuit to provide additional processing flexibility until the start-up of the project.

Outlook

Environmental approval has been granted for Enterprise and preparatory works around the project have been undertaken to allow pre-stripping to commence when market conditions favour nickel production.