【Industry News】Australian platinum pioneer emphasizes green, considers non-smelting technology

Australia's platinum group metals pioneer, Podium Minerals, is evaluating the cleanest and greenest mining and processing options, including the possibility of circumventing smelting.

The ASX-listed exploration and resource development company, which takes environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations very seriously, has just completed a conceptual study as part of the renewal of its 6 million ounce Parks Reef resource base in Western Australia.

Sam Rodda, director and CEO of Podium, said, "We are currently in the study phase." He spoke of Podium's current favourable position to be in production by the end of the decade, in line with the expected shortfall in platinum demand.

In an interview with Mining Weekly, Rodda said, "Our orebody is in a great location and the orebody is big. We have a large orebody and the ability to expand it."

"We are looking at non-smelting processing. We have the right team in place and I think this is really the beginning of Podium Minerals, but it's also the beginning of Australia and Western Australia as a growing platinum group metals sector." Rodda said excitedly.

The orebody contains a mix of platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, gold, copper, nickel and cobalt and is 15 kilometers in strike and up to 20 metres in width and remains open below 500 metres.

Within the reef assemblage, higher grade top and bottom wall zones provide a method of increasing mining rates, which the company is considering.

In addition to platinum group metal flotation concentrates, downstream process development has demonstrated that the use of atmospheric leaching can improve metal recovery of the eight available metals, ultimately resulting in a product suitable for the refinery.

This has a number of additional benefits, including higher metal payables, and the ability to reduce project logistics costs.

"For us, having a large, long and deep platinum group metals ore body, it's important to start small and build cash flow and confidence in our platinum group metals operations in Australia before we can really ramp up production or increase marginal ounces."

Rodda says, "The high-grade zones give us options and help us manage some of the high and low peaks that the market is likely to see over the next decade."

On the technical side, there are indications that non-smelting metal recovery from the leachate of the atmospheric leach process can produce a platinum group metal product suitable for refinery feedstock, which means lower transportation costs from Western Australia to global platinum group metal refineries.

In Rodda's view, demand in the internal combustion engine (ICE) market has still not peaked. With rising emissions standards, he expects demand for ICE vehicles to continue through the end of the decade and decline slowly after 2030.

"We believe that demand for platinum group metals will be very strong in the existing supply sector, but equally we are very bullish on future demand for platinum group metals, namely green hydrogen production, hydrogen generation through proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers, which are the main users of platinum group metals, and then the start-up and development of fuel cell vehicles.

Rodda adds, "We think demand will remain strong and we look forward to seeing what the world looks like in the next decade. The world will really need to start thinking about new sources of platinum group metals."

It's a very timely question. We've just released our latest process to the Australian market and the first step for us is to test whether our ore can produce a sulphide flotation concentrate and the good news is that it does. But, again, along the lines of non-smeltered products, we are also pursuing our preferred processing route, which is to use an atmospheric leaching process that is seeking to produce a very high grade platinum group metals product with strong early indications of enabling us to pursue higher metal product solvency, as well as significantly reducing logistics costs from central Western Australia to global platinum group metals refineries. As ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and electrification are reduced, the carbon footprint of our platinum group metals products should be significantly reduced. We are seeing significant three-way progress in this area, and Parks Reef and Podium are taking good advantage of this three-way progress.

Globally, and particularly in Australia, the mining industry has a responsibility to think about ESG and clean mining. So, as we move into the research phase, we're definitely evaluating the cleanest and greenest options through our research work, and as we move into the production phase, we want to make sure that we're minimizing our carbon footprint and engaging other stakeholders in the process to get a broader ESG perspective. It's nice to get to that stage where we can make a difference at the beginning rather than inheriting an old mine and then coming in with that perspective and relaunching. I think that's very important. (Source: Mining Weekly)