A debottlenecking study backs the potential to more than double production capacity at Canadian specialist First Cobalt’s planned recommissioned battery-grade cobalt sulfate refinery at an incremental cost of $US7.5M.
The Ausenco Engineering Canada study estimated that eliminating the autoclave circuit and addressing production constraints would raise total capital cost to $37.5M while lifting capacity to over 5,000tpa from 2,000-2,500tpa.
FCC is continuing definitive commercial talks with Glencore and others on financing and the supply of third-party cobalt hydroxide as primary feed material to restart the refinery in 18-24 months.