Overview
Stage | Pre-Feasibility |
Mine Type | Open Pit |
Commodities |
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Mining Method |
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Mine Life | 35 years (as of Jan 1, 2021) |
FPX’s flagship Baptiste Nickel Project, located within the Decar Nickel District, is a greenfield discovery of nickel mineralization in the form of a naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy called awaruite, a naturally occurring stainless steel.
October 19, 2023 – FPX Nickel Corp. announces that it has filed the associated National Instrument 43-101 Standards for Disclosure for Mineral Projects technical report for the Preliminary Feasibility Study for the Baptiste Nickel Project at its wholly-owned Decar Nickel District in central British Columbia. |
Latest News | FPX Nickel Files Preliminary Feasibility Study for Baptiste Nickel Project October 19, 2023 |
Source:
p. 53
In November 2015, First Point Minerals Corp. (now FPX Nickel Corp.) purchased Cliffs’ share of the Project and established 100% ownership of the Project.
Contractors
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Summary:
The Decar Property, located in central British Columbia, hosts the Baptiste Deposit which is characterized as a disseminated Ni-Fe alloy (awaruite) Deposit. In addition to the Baptiste Deposit, there are three other known target areas on the Property that bear similarities to the Baptiste Deposit, all of which occur within the serpentinized ultramafic rocks of the Cache Creek terrane.
Historical exploration on the Property has focused on three deposit types: (1) Ni-Fe alloy (awaruite) in serpentinized ultramafic rock, (2) listwanite-hosted gold, and (3) chromite pods in ultramafic. Each of these is briefly described below even though, at this time, only the Ni-Fe alloy deposits are potentially economic.
Ni-Fe alloy deposits are an atypical deposit type formed by the serpentinization of magmatic olivine that leads to the liberation of nickel and iron (Britten, 2016) and subsequent formation of the alloy. Awaruite occurs throughout the entire extent of the peridotite on the Decar Property, but four zones of more abundant mineralization and larger grain size have been delineated; Baptiste, Sid, B and Van. The Baptiste Deposit is the most advanced of these four target areas. The other three targets are defined through surface mapping, sampling and/or diamond drilling, with three holes drilled at Sid Target and one drilled at B Target. High-grade awaruite appears to trend NW-SE, parallel to the orientation of lithological contacts and major fault structur ........

Summary:
The mine plan is based on a three-phase open pit mine development. The first phase of the proposed mine plan uses an external tailings storage facility (TSF) for disposing of tailings generated while mining the Phase 1 pit which will be mined for the first 21 years. After the Phase 1 pit is mined out, the tailings produced from Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the mine plan will be placed in the mined-out Phase 1 pit. A pit rim dam will be constructed in Year 25 to accommodate the additional tailings that will be stored in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 pits. The Phase 2 and Phase 3 pits will be mined from Year 22 to Year 35.
Mining will be conducted using conventional truck and shovel methods. Large-scale open pit mining will provide the mineral processing plant feed at a rate of 120,000 t/d, or 43.8 Mt/a which was based on processing capacity inputs provided. Annual mine production of mill feed and waste will peak at 80.1 Mt/a with a life-of-mine (LOM) stripping ratio of 0.40:1 including preproduction (0.32 during the first 10 years of operation, and 0.22 over the first 16 years of operations).
The Baptiste pit is designed for 10 m mining bench heights based on consideration of the loading equipment capabilities (mining height and reach). This may be modified during future detailed planning and equipment selection.
Source:

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Flow Sheet:
Summary:

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Projected Production:
Phase 1 from Yr-1 to Yr-21: briquetted concentrate produced - 73,143 tpa, contained Ni produced - 46,373 tpa.
Phase 2 from Yr-22 to Yr-35: briquetted concentrate produced - 71,106 tpa, contained Ni produced - 45,081 tpa.
Commodity | Units | LOM |
Nickel
|
kt
| 1,572 |
All production numbers are expressed as metal in concentrate.
Operational Metrics:
Metrics | |
Daily ore mining rate
| ......  |
Daily processing capacity
| ......  |
Annual ore mining rate
| ......  |
Annual processing capacity
| ......  |
Stripping / waste ratio
| ......  |
Waste tonnes, LOM
| ......  |
Ore tonnes mined, LOM
| ......  |
Total tonnes mined, LOM
| ......  |
Tonnes processed, LOM
| ......  |
* According to 2021 study.
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Reserves at September 9, 2020:
The mineral resource estimate for the Baptiste Deposit at acut-off grade of 0.06% DTR Ni.
Category | Tonnage | Commodity | Grade | Contained Metal |
Indicated
|
1,995,873 kt
|
Nickel
|
0.122 %
|
2,434,965 t
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Inferred
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592,890 kt
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Nickel
|
0.114 %
|
675,895 t
|
Proposed Heavy Mobile Equipment:
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