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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Growing global demand for cobalt has prompted Australia-based Tiger Resources to examine the possibility of converting its resources at the Kipoi mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to a saleable product.
CEO Michael Griffiths said on Thursday that Tiger had commissioned a study by independent consultant Mintrex to investigate the economic viability of producing cobalt at Kipoi.
The study was expected to take about three months to complete.
Tiger had a measured and indicated cobalt resource of 40 400 t and an inferred resource of 5 600 t across the Kipoi Central, Kipoi North, Kileba and Judeira deposits at the Kipoi project. There were also additional cobalt resources at the nearby Sase Central deposit, where Tiger had defined an indicated cobalt resource of 5 000 t and an inferred resource of 1 000 t.
“Cobalt is used in many industries, but its demand is increasing mostly due to its use in batteries and super alloys,” Griffiths said.
Tiger currently produced about 26 000 t/y of copper cathode from the Kipoi project and was undertaking debottlenecking works at the plant to increase production capacity to 32 500 t/y.
