Abstract
The Dumont deposit is a large (1,179 Mt proven and probable reserve) low grade (0.27% nickel) nickel sulphide project located in the Abitibi region 25 km west of Amos, Quebec. Royal Nickel Corporation acquired the project in 2007 and has since taken the project from a scoping study in 2010 through to completing the feasibility study in July 2013.
The Dumont deposit is a nickel deposit with the recoverable nickel contained in three minerals; pentlandite, haezlewoodite and awaruite. The minerals are recovered by a combination of flotation and magnetic separation. Over the course of the studies many flowsheet design and decisions were made. This paper outlines an overview of the project, flowsheet design including the comminution circuit, desliming and the awaruite recovery. The overall resulting flowsheet that was used for the feasibility study is then presented along with the confirmatory locked cycle testing that showed the feasibility design basis was able to produce the predicted grade and recovery.
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This paper was presented at SAG 2015. Download this paper here.