Mining company RNC and its joint venture (JV) partner Waterton are ready to accelerate discussions with potential participants to advance the Dumont nickel/cobalt project – tipped to be one of Canada’s largest base metals mines – to construction, CEO Mark Selby reported on Thursday.

This comes as RNC published a “milestone” update to its 2013 feasibility study for Dumont, which ranks the Quebec-based $1-billion project among the top-five sulphide nickel producers globally.

With initial production of 33 000 t/y, ramping up to 50 000 t/y in the Phase 2 expansion, Dumont would produce about 1.2-million tonnes (2.6-billion pounds) of nickel concentrate over three decades, at a life-of-mine cash cost of $3.22/lb nickel and an all-in sustaining cost of $3.80/lb payable nickel.

The average nickel concentrate grade over the 30-year mine life was estimated to be 29%, which made the concentrate suitable for alternative paths to the market, such as roasting, instead of traditional smelting and refining.

One of the key elements of the updated feasibility study was to decouple the mine production rates from that of the plant, with the mining rate maintained at about twice the milling capacity. This, RNC reported, allowed for accelerated output of metal in the early years from higher grade and recovery material, while lower grade material would be stockpiled for processing when the openpit was exhausted. About 398 t of stockpiled ore would be left for processing.

This strategy also allowed tailings produced from year 20 onwards to be impounded within the mined-out pit, which RNC said reduced the cost and the size associated with the tailings storage facility (TSF). The design improvement reduced the tonnage requiring impoundment in the TSF by 12%.

The total initial capital cost of Dumont reduced by $173-million to $1.02-billion, split between the mine ($223-million), the processing plant ($346-million), the tailings ($36-million), infrastructure ($206-million) and other costs.

The 2019 study delivered an improvement in the internal rate of return from 15.2% in the 2013 study to 15.4%, while the net present value was reduced by $217-million to $920-million, mainly owing to inflation, a revised mine design, deferred expansion date.

RNC said that the JV had identified a number of additional upside opportunities that had the potential to add value to the project, but which had not been included in the base case of the feasibility study. These include an autonomous fleet operation, an alternate development scenario with a larger start-up operation and recovering iron-ore (magnetite) concentrate as a by-product.

“Dumont is one of the only large scale fully permitted nickel/cobalt projects that can begin to satisfy the significant growth in nickel and cobalt demand driven by the electric vehicle sector,” said Selby.

RNC's share price on Thursday failed to reflect the company's excitement over Dumont, with the stock trading nearly 10% lower at C$0.42 apiece, giving the company a market capitalisation of C$211.56-million.

RNC also owns the producing Beta Hunt gold mine, in Western Australia, where a significant high-grade gold discovery - Father's Day Vein - was made.